One Shots All About Lorna and Marcos
by PurelyRed
Summary: One Shots about the relationship between our favourite ship couple Eclaris. Might include other Lorna/ ships or relationships if there's a prompt or inspiration comes
1. When Marcos and Lorna Discuss Baby Names

_**One Shot: Lorna/ Marcos (Eclaris)**_

When Marcos and Lorna discuss girl baby names

"If it's a girl, maybe Neveah."

"Lorna, you know that's heaven spelled backwards."

"Well, it's our kid. And we aren't exactly angels either."


	2. Green Is Lorna's Favourite Colour

**One-Shot (2): Lorna/Marcos (Eclaris)**

 **Green is Lorna's Favourite Colour**

Because Lorna's Favourite colour is green, she always picks the greens off Marco's plate of food. And Marcos always lets her, one, because he knows she likes it, two, probably because she'd hit him really hard if he didn't allow it and still find a way to scrap everything off his plate anyway.


	3. Cheesy Things That Marcos Does For Lorna

_**One-Shot (3): Lorna/Marcos**_ _**Cheesy Things That Marcos Does For Lorna**_

On her birthday, he always gives her an emerald that he imbued with his light energy to make it glow—its a gesture to her that he'll always be her light in the darkness and that a part of him will always be with her no matter what.

Lorna always laughs at him when he gives her the same present every year but keeps the stones secretly in a pouch, counting the years they've been together.

…..

In the end, when both of them are bedridden and old and have a girl and a boy to complete their family, but are still awake enough to be by each other's side, Lorna tells their children to bring her precious chest of things to the room and empty it out. Their children do as their told, and countless glowing emeralds scatter out on to their bed. Marcos laughs at her, a smile on his face as he dies, and the emeralds that he'd given her for years finally dies out as his last breath leaves his lips.

 _ **~~~~  
A/N:**_

 _ **I promise these will get longer, they're actually random one shots I had as inspiration after watching the show that I originally posted on my Tumblr :P**_

 _ **Please do Review + Give me prompts about Lorna/Marcos or Lorna/ any ship**_

 _ **They don't have to be romantic in nature**_


	4. Marcos Is Lorna's Personal Marshmallow

_**One Shot (4): Lorna/Marcos**_

 _ **Inspiration: Marcos' lame tries at being funny in Ep 1 and Ep 3 that got Lorna grinning. [TBH THAT WAS SO SWEET]**_

Marcos is Lorna's personal Warm Marshmallow.

He's strong, manly, awkward, with lame puns, but awfully warm, protective and sweet.

And she likes it when he cuddles her just to give her warmth and let's her snuggle up to him when the weather gets cold. (It's better when they're skin to skin, honestly, but John kept complaining about the lights and the sounds that his oversensitive senses kept detecting—apparently their pretty lights kept waking him up in the middle of the night, and three walls and a steel vault were still too thin for his sensitive ears.)

Marcos is hers in every way—except when John demands he pop his popcorn for him with his hands. Lorna and John both have sharing rights over that function, but the personal warmer and heater still remains as Lorna's and Lorna's right only.

And he's just right for her too.

There was no worry for her that he'd fall behind or leave her side—Marcos was dependable like that despite being hot headed and rash.

Most of all, she could always stand by his side as a equal, no matter her gender, her power….and if she ever felt lost, he'd always look at her with the same fond, warm eyes and she'd feel home again.

 _ **A/N:**_

 _ **REVIEW!**_

 _ **COMMENT!**_

 _ **I will love you if you do, but thats beside the point...**_


	5. Lorna Hates and Loves Spanish

_**One Shot (5): Lorna/Marcos**_

 _ **Inspiration: Tumblr post saying something about Marcos and Lorna teaching their kid in the future all about Spanish.**_

 _ **Times Where Lorna Both Hates and Loves Spanish**_

Marcos is bilingual.

Everyone who knew him knew that.

To be honest, Lorna only found out about that small snippet of information right after they had spent their first night together.

She had came with a scream in her throat and raked her nails down his back, and he had clutched her tenderly to him, nuzzling her with such gentleness that made her heart ache and swell all at the same time.

"Wow." She breathed, chuckling slightly. "That was awesome." His liquid warm brown eyes stared at her tenderly, before a chuckle reverberated across his chest.

"Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?" She stretched herself lightly underneath him, her legs curling around his waist and a sly smile crossing her face.

"Yes." She crowed, pressing herself against him with a teasing squeeze. He'd hissed immediately, and muttered something under his breath that she couldn't quite catch.

Intrigued, she pressed her lips to his collarbone, trying to draw those unfamiliar words out of his mouth yet again.

"Mierda!" He'd hissed under his breath again in surprise. "Oh shit, Lorna. Please, don't do that again. I swear—" He groaned into her shoulder as she hummed and laughed.

"What was that language you used anyway?" He rolled off her gently, his lips never leaving her jawline—she was really gonna have to stop him from that, because it was messing with the ability of her brain to think. "Marcos." He gave a huff of exasperation at the interruption, his warm eyes intense with both lust and love.

"Spanish."

"You speak Spanish?" She gasped, hoisting herself up in their makeshift bed with surprise, before slapping his chest moments later. "You never told me!"

"Didn't think it was really necessary.." Marcos mumbled shyly, his cheeks reddening slightly at her intense stare. "It's nothing, anyway."

"Well, I think it's really sexy." Lorna hummed, resting her chin on her arm and tracing circular patterns on his chest. "Really, really sexy."

"Turns you on?" Marcos chuckled, and a involuntarily smile twitched up Lorna's lips.

"Maybe. I like men who're pretty much bilingual." She teased.

Marcos raised his eyebrows.

"Should I be aware of any competition then?"

"Nope!" She'd chirped, wriggling out from under their sheets to prance across their small room. "That attractive trait only applies to you." Marcos grinned, getting out of the cot to pull her into his arms as they watched the sun rise in the horizon.

The weather was cold, but she'd snuggled into his toasty arms happily as he pressed a kiss to her hair.

"It's beautiful." Lorna murmured, eyes fixated on the glowing sunrise that turned the clouds pink. "Isn't it?" She turned her head slightly, lips parted, to look at Marcos. Marcos smiled crookedly, his eyes fixated on her face and not the sunrise.

"Of course it is, but it isn't as beautiful as you." The cheesy pun took a moment to register with Lorna before she broke into peals of laughter, her bright hazel eyes gleaming.

"I meant that when I said that, you know." The sudden seriousness of Marcos' tone took her entirely by surprise, and her cheeks immediately flushed at his words.

"Oh–"

"Te Amo, Lorna." He muttered those words reverently, like a worshipful whisper into her ears, and her eyes glistened with unshed tears.

There was no need for him to translate those two words. The emotion behind them was enough for Lorna to truly understand what he had meant.

"I love you too." She whispered back softly, and they sealed their love with a promising kiss.

…

If that was the reason why Lorna loved Marcos speaking Spanish, she definitely hated the fact he spoke Spanish now.

She glared back at her equally hot tempered three year old daughter, who stood legs apart and arms crossed huffily as she engaged a stare down with Lorna.

"It's broccoli, Allora. You have to eat that vegetables." Her daughter's refusal to chomp down the bunch of broccoli on her plate, instead choosing to poke and prod at the food with a disgusted look on her face was really starting to grate on Lorna's nerves.

"Allora Diaz-Dane, don't make me repeat this twice. Eat." She pointed the fork at her daughter.

"No!" Her fiery tempered daughter kicked the table with a tantrum filled kick, and the metal utensils on the table rattled alongside Lorna's nerves.

"Don't make me call your Dad here." Sometimes Lorna wondered how Caitlin managed with two teenagers in the house. She only had one and she was already on the verge of tearing out the roots of her hair.

"I heard my name." An irritated sigh rushed out of her throat as her daughter practically threw herself out of her chair.

"Papa!" Allora squealed with all the adoration she didn't have for her broccoli toting mother, and threw herself into Marcos' arms.

"Hello, Mí Querída." Marcos chuckled as he pressed a kiss to Allora's greenish-black hair.

"Your daughter's causing trouble for me at the dinner table again." Marcos stared at the accusatory tone that Lorna huffed with, before his eyes landed on the untouched broccoli on the plate of food.

"Aurora Allora Diaz-Dane." He stared at their three year old sternly, and immediately, their daughter shifted uncomfortably. "You will finish your vegetables and stop troubling your Mami."

"No!" Her daughter scrunched her face into a pitiful beseeching face. "Pero Broccoli gusto asqueroso!" Lorna sucked in a breath to calm herself as Marcos chuckled beneath his breath and replied back in Spanish, starting off a rapid fire of Spanish words with a three year old that she didn't understand.

It was times like these that frustrated and annoyed her—because Spanish was a secret code between Marcos and their daughter that frustrated and both made her jealous. She stared jealously through the corner of her eyes as her daughter expressively waved her hands, the exotic language rolling off her tongue with ease that Lorna couldn't help but scoff.

She crossed her arms.

They were definitely bartering on something.

And the annoying thing was that she could tell they were bartering, but didn't know what they were bartering about.

"Okay!" Lorna struggled between rage and jealousy as her daughter clambered up her chair, scrunched her nose and chomped down the vegetable they had been struggling with for the past hour.

"I hate you." Marcos chuckled at his frazzled wife.

"No you don't."

"Yes I do!" Lorna hissed, pressing an empty plate to his chest. "Especially when both of you talk in Spanish."

"I thought you liked it? You did say it was sexy." Marcos chuckled, bringing his arms around her waist as Lorna wavered in her temper.

"I did! But–"

"Ohhh. You're jealous." Marcos said smugly, a shit-eating grin crossing his face.

"Am not!" Marcos chuckled, then stole a kiss from her lips as she opened her mouth to argue, silencing Lorna with a deep kiss that left her both gasping and wanting more.

"Te Amo, Mi Bella." He grinned as she melted at his use of affectionate words.

"That's cheating."

"Nope. That's called using what you have to turn the tables." Marcos grinned as Lorna buried her face in his chest, her cheeks burning.

" We should stop before John complains."

"Mhm."

"Finished!" Both of them turned to their oblivious daughter, who held out her bowl like she'd finished the biggest competition of her life, sauce smeared all over her mouth but a big grin on her face.

"Well Done." Lorna picked up the plate, torn between laughing and staying angry. Marcos quickly bent down, picking their small daughter into his arms and whispering in her ears.

"What are you two conspiring again?"

"Nothing!" She huffed out a laugh as both of them answered simultaneously.

"Mama!" Lorna nearly shrieked as her daughter's face appeared suddenly in front of her. "Te Amo, Mama! Allora loves you berry much!" Lorna looked at Marcos, who shrugged and grinned at her.

"Fine." Lorna suppressed a smile as her daughter planted a saucy wet kiss on her cheek. "I'll be happier if you gave me one on my lips." Her daughter squealed, leaning over to leap into Lorna's arms, and she caught her daughter reflexively, cradling her precious cargo with gentle hands.

"Mad?" Her three year old daughter lisped slightly, playing with the tendrils of her hair. "Mi papá dijo que no estaría loco si lo hice."

"No, I do not understand Spanish darling, but no I'm not mad." Lorna couldn't stay mad at her daughter for very long. Perhaps it was the fact that she was just so adorable, or the fact that she was half of Marcos that made her love her even more. "You're gonna have to learn to speak in English more, alright?" She turned her evil eye towards Marcos, who held up his hands in surrender.

"I'll teach her in English more." He swore cheekily, and Lorna shook her head slightly before handing her daughter back to Marco's with a laugh. She paused, chewing her lip slightly before turning back to call out at her husband's retreating back.

"Te Amo too, Marcos."

 ** _A/N:_**

 ** _I used Google Translate for their Spanish. But knowing how much of a trash I am with that language and my zero vocabulary on it, I think I can say that whatever Google Translate said was what I meant to say isn't [perhaps] truly what I want to say xD_**

 ** _And the name Aurora that everyone's campaigning for if the baby's a girl has made me laugh my ass off so many times [I can't even watch the opening scene of Episode 3 without laughing so hard till tears gush out from my eyes.]_**

 ** _And so I gave the little girl a name that I think would fit her, and perhaps fit Lorna's character inclination-I don't think Lorna would be very inclined to be naming her daughter Aurora, because its kinda cheesy and we know Lorna's pretty strong willed in her sense of self._**

 ** _So I chose to name her Aurora Allora, because Marcos is the cheesy one here that probably likes that name [Pffft xD] and Lorna just can't refute him about it, so they compromise with Aurora Allora, where Marcos calls her Aurora and Lorna calls her Allora [The name has an adoring and alluring feel to it, which I think Lorna as the sweet but sentimental one would give her that name in attribution to their Aurora Borealis and to show her love and adoration for the man that she views as family._**

 ** _But poor kid though xD Having to have two different names her mom and dad call her each differently._**

 ** _And in my mind's eye, Allora would be a mini Lorna, but with her father's eye shape and skin tone :P And also curly hair :p_**

 ** _Anyway, REVIEWS WILL BE APPRECIATED xD I'll even reply if I can!_**


	6. After The Breakout

_*Spoilers if you have yet to watch the recent episode_

 _ **One-Shot (6): Lorna/Marcos**_

 _ **Inspiration: The breakout scene in 1x04 and the Eclaris Reunion that almost had me in tears**_

 _ **After the Breakout**_

It is after the breakout goes well and they reach the headquarters that Lorna truly savours the fact she's back where she belongs.

Marcos and her both have a good laugh over her throwing herself into his arms when they saw each other at the breakout.

"Desperate much?" Marcos teased lightly, twisting his fingers in her hair lightly as she snuggles next to him, simply content in being back in his arms, surrounded by family and friends.

"Yeah, you wish." Marcos grins as she retorts with a comeback on her own. Loving Lorna was a challenge, no less difficult, but an equally satisfying one. It wasn't that she was difficult to handle, in all honesty, he was probably the most difficult to handle in their relationship, being the bull headed and brash one that acted impulsively more than logically. Sure, Lorna had her times where she did those stuff too, but Marcos was sure that he'd championed her five to one in "impulsive matters that almost gets people killed". The challenge of their relationship was more of the fact that Lorna was strong in her own rightful way–and that meant she always kept him on his toes. When they'd first started their relationship three years ago, many hadn't approved of them together, since he had yet to prove the fact that he was worthy to stand by her side and stand rightfully with her as a figure in the Mutant Underground. She'd put those qualms to rest, of course, in the typical Lorna way of sassiness and honest brutality that had them torn half between being embarrassed and half laughing. She was just that unique and special that way.

"I missed you." Her soft voice drew him back from his thoughts, their fingers laced together as she played with his fingers childishly.

"Like how much?" He couldn't help but tease her further, watching with satisfaction as her cheeks coloured and she aimed a kick at his shin.

"I'm not talking to you if you're gonna be that way."

"Alright, fine. Fine." Marcos chortled, holding up his hands in surrender.

"I hope you didn't do something stupid just to get me out of jail." Marcos nearly blanched, because it was a fact that he actually did do something stupid to get her out of jail. He was thankful that John and Sonia had the decency not to mention the fact he went looking for Carmen (Lorna really really wouldn't take that fact well, considering how much she hated his ex-girlfriend.), because if they did say something about Carmen, Marcos wasn't sure if he'd still be in one piece by the time she got to Carmen herself, because Lorna was irrational when she loved him like that.

"Marcos?" He swallowed as his girlfriend narrowed her eyes slightly at his stiffened posture. "Oh my God, you really did do something stupid to get me out!" She slapped his chest. "Tell me."

"I thought you're tired." Marcos grumbled slightly, trying and failing miserably to change the topic.

"Marcos Diaz." Lorna hissed lowly. "You're telling me what stupid thing you did—"

"Did I mention before that you look really hot when you're pissed?" His comment took Lorna momentarily by surprise, before she huffed and slapped his chest again, albeit a little weaker than before.

"I promise I'll tell you tomorrow." He pulled the slightly struggling Lorna into his arms. "When we're all feeling calmer and better."

"Calmer." Lorna's sleepy voice murmured from his chest. "Now I'm starting to dread hearing that stupid thing you did from your mouth, because normally you saying that I should stay calm when you do something stupid means that you really did do something stupid…" She gave a soft adorable yawn that had his lips twitching at the edges, her body stretching like a cat's as she draped her body over his lazily, eyeslashes fluttering close as sleep slowly took over her mind and body, one arm hooked gently across his neck and the other, unconsciously draped over her still flat belly.

Marcos pressed a kiss to her knuckles gently.

"I love you both."

"Mhm." He heard her hum sleepily in response. "I know that." There was a slow pause. "So you're gonna tell me everything tomorrow?"

Marcos exhaled slightly.

"Yep. Tomorrow."

 _ **A/N:**_

 ** _I actually really love the fact that Lorna was so happy to see Marcos-she's so strong in her own right that people tend to forget that she's a woman at heart, who's very much in love and protective over her family. She definitely would have been worrying alot quietly for her baby in her belly, if not she wouldn't have agreed to work with Reed [whom she clearly detests]-so in that split moment that her face, so strong moments before facing down the Sentinel Services and destroying their guns etc. saw Marcos, everything she had been holding onto, her strong front, her iron clad willpower and prickly defenses collapsed and she literally threw herself into his arms._**

 ** _Emma Dumont really puts the punch in so many of Polaris' emotional scenes. Seeing Marcos is both relieving and liberating at the same time, because she doesn't have to be strong in front of family, and the people she loves. Although she held onto the hope that they might rescue her, she never thought they would risk going through with it, and its palpable in her face when everything collapses into absolute pure joy and happiness that Marcos came for her, because this rescue is like a dream come true._**

 ** _So..._**

 ** _Anyway, I've ranted quite enough about my adoration over Lorna and Emma Dumont herself xD_**

 ** _I actually have a parenting Lorna/Caitlin story in my arsenal, but I'm not sure if I should put it up xD Should I? Do tell me in your reviews if you have any prompts or want to see any other Lorna/ ship pairings. And like I said, they don't have to be romantic in nature. Not all ships are romantic in nature after all :P_**

 ** _I could do ThunderBlink too, but there's so many good shots for them here-and despite Jaime Chung being my spirit animal [Somewhat], I don't really think I have as good a grasp over Johnny and Clarisse as I do with Lorna and Marcos xD_**


	7. Caitlin Is a Good Parenting Help

_**One Shot (7): Lorna; Caitlin**_

 _ **Inspiration: The idea that Lorna and Marcos have a child coming and there's no one more experienced and gentle as Caitlin Strucker to take advice from.**_

 ** _Caitlin is A Good Parenting Help_**

It is when Lorna has a screaming two year old on her hands refusing to eat broccoli that Caitlin pretty much becomes the first best person she truly likes after Marcos. Her tears of frustration and anger are almost about to come out as her daughter screams in her face, fat globs of tears running down her chubby face—it had to be when she was emotionally down that her daughter liked to act up the terrible twos like the worst tyrant in the world—

"I'll take it from here. You look like you need a good rest." Lorna nearly cries with relief when Caitlin reaches over to take her daughter from her arms, and she feels like Caitlin is the best thing that kinda happened to her after Marcos (even though she really hates Reed)–until her daughter immediately stops crying in Caitlin's arms and starts sucking her thumb quietly as Caitlin feeds her successfully her first broccoli—and Lorna feels like she's the world's worst mum all over again.

Caitlin looks knowingly at her like she understands what's going through Lorna's head and passes her daughter back to Lorna. The baby's face scrunches up almost immediately, like she's almost about to cry–and Lorna panics.

"Calm down. She's feeling your stress that's why she's crying. It's not helping either of you. Just relax." She pressed down Lorna's tight shoulder blades gently, and Lorna watches as her baby's face slowly relaxes into a gummy smile, baby drool dripping from the thumb she'd been sucking on.

"Now try feeding her again." Lorna glanced up at Caitlin incredulously. "Try, Lorna." She hesitantly picks up the spoon, Caitlin's fingers pressed tightly into her shoulder blades to stop her from tensing up, rubbing gentle circles soothingly into her shoulder blades, and Lorna offers the peace making broccoli to her two year old daughter. Her daughter's hazel eyes blink into her own, before she gives a happy gurgle and chomps down the vegetable like a champ.

"See?" Caitlin smiled gently at her, gently rubbing the baby's cheek affectionately. Her daughter squeals, then cuddles her shoulder as though she never wants to leave Lorna's side, and immediately, Lorna decides that Caitlin is her second favourite person in the world.


	8. Allora Learns the Meaning of Her Powers

**_One-Shot (8): Lorna/Marcos/OC Character [Eclaris Children]_**

 ** _Inspiration: Because the Aurora Borealis kept making me laugh so hard despite it being sweet. All my trashy brain kept thinking about was how it would be like when they had sex [John's exasperated face kept popping up in my mind], and what could possibly happen when their kid finds out that he/she has similar coloured powers to Eclaris Aurora Borealis-owing to Marcos' Solar Energy and Lorna's Magnetosphere._**

When Lora first came across her mutation it came off in a array of Northern Lights.

She thought it was perfect and beautiful, and couldn't for the hell of it understand why her Dad and Mom had exchanged a shared glance with each other when she'd first lighted up and ran to tell them.

Even her Uncle Johnny had a half resigned face when she'd ask him the question.

The only person to ever give her a proper answer was perhaps her Aunt Clarisse, who's sarcasm rubbed off more often than what she liked.

"You'll get it kid, when you walk in on your mommy and daddy's birds and bees in the future."

Her Uncle Johnny had snorted, then drawn her Aunt Clarisse away from her, on the pretext of preventing her from further "polluting innocent children's minds".

Lora simply told her five year old self what Aunt Clarisse meant was that she'd have to find out the answer all by herself—by barging in on her Mama and Daddy unannounced as often as she could.

Needless to say, Marcos and Lorna weren't very happy with the turn of events, because being on the run meant that the school and headquarters were in the exact same place, and well, they couldn't risk lighting up the whole place while they had sex, couldn't they?

Their daughter was just perhaps two or more doors down.

With her peaked interest of barging into places unannounced, it might have caused a serious talk about birds and bees to come a bit too early than they would have liked.

Of course, none was more pleased by this turn of events than John. Because as far as he was concerned, seeing the northern lights of Lorna and Marcos meant a physical blatant sign they were humping each other like rabbits. And with his sensitive senses as his mutation as a tracker, those were the times he definitely did not want to be in the headquarters.

And so came the absence of a sex life for Lorna and Marcos for around half a year, before Lora forgot what she'd been raving about and John had taken her and Clarisse on a rare trip for training.

Of course, when Lora and Johnny were finally gone then could their sex life resume. (Clarisse gave them a familiar naughty wiggle of her eyebrows–Lorna gave her a middle finger in ultimate respect.)

Well…though one could say their sex life without their daughter around became a activity that took place a bit too frequently.

And so when Lora came back from training, she was utterly horrified to be informed that she was going to be a big sister in nine months.

"No!" Lorna nearly tore her hair out at this point at her stubborn daughter, who threw herself into a five year old tantrum as soon as they told her she wasn't going to be the only child in their tight knit family any longer. "No! No!"

"Allora Diaz-Dane! " Lorna finally blew her top with her daughter, and the metals nearby rattled with her thinned nerves.

It must have scared her daughter, because the little girl immediately burst into loud tears that made Lorna feel like she'd been given the Worst Mom Award by her five year old daughter.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart." Lorna quickly pulled her little girl into a tight warm hug, pressing a kiss to the crown of her greenish black hair.

Lora's cries slowly ceased.

"But you'd have to accept that you aren't gonna be the only kid down here anymore."

Looking back, Lorna felt that she could have probably broken the news a tad better to her young daughter, because as soon as she said those words, Lora burst back into loud noisy tears and they were back to square one.

And so when Dom had came into the world wailing his tiny lungs out, Lorna thought that they would have two big problems on their hands. One was their ever stubborn and hot tempered daughter, and the other, a newborn that was incredibly fussy beyond any regular means.

To their surprise, Lora had taken to her brother much better than they thought she would _(after her two tries of abandoning her brother in the forest and asking five different couples to adopt Dom instead)_ —though Lorna believed that being able to have another person tagging behind like Lora was the best thing in the world was the main motivation behind her daughter's acceptance of her brother.

Still, there were times Lorna wished that Marcos and her hadn't been so eager for children to come into their world.

Because Lora and Dom's fights were one of the worst kinds of fights to break up. At least with Lora they knew what they could handle, with their daughter's mutation being very similar to Lorna's own. But Dom's mutation was perhaps even more dangerous than Andy Strucker's own violent mutation—they'd come across it for the first time when he was seven and Lora was twelve. Lorna and Marcos had been able to settle down, in a place that was mainly for mutants, and had gone out for a rare romantic dinner that night, leaving their children home.

It was nonetheless disastrous.

Lora and Dom had gotten into a fierce fight when they had gone, and when they returned, the house was in shambles. All their metal fixtures were torn apart and shattered, the pots and pans turned into scrap metal–courtesy of their hot tempered daughter, and a house missing a roof and bedroom, with a unconscious daughter and a crying son.

Marcos and Lorna had learnt later that the two had fought over something trivial, with Lora trying to teach her brother a lesson with her powers–she'd pinned him to the wall with some knives she'd found in the kitchen _(She'd have to have a deep talk with her daughter about that)_ , and with the knives flying so close to his face, their son had manifested his powers in his extreme fear.

Marcos pulled their wailing little boy from his pinned place on the wall to gather him into his arms.

"Lorna." Both of them looked at each other solemnly as a reddish energy blazed around Dom's body and hands in a disk like form. That was what had caused Lora to become unconscious and had taken out almost their entire house.

The red plasma that their son emitted while he wailed was worrying. Marcos could still avoid injury because the moment their son saw them, the reddish plasma had ceased to form and swirl around his little body.

Lorna exhaled shakily, not daring to pull her daughter from her position on the ground in fear of worsening the situation.

"I'll get Caitlin." Marcos murmured, shifting their son to his back steathily as Lorna nodded, at a loss of what to do save for simply staring at her unconscious daughter.

Caitlin had arrived with her son and daughter, and had immediately taken control of the situation, tending to Lora's wounds as meticulously as possible.

"So he manifested?" Lorna glanced up as Caitlin handed her a cup of hot coffee.

"Well, they quarrelled, and yes, Dom manifested."

"Plasma and cosmic energy, isn't it?" Lorna nodded at her words.

"Yeah."

"Sounds a bit like Andy's destructive powers." Caitlin's voice was soft.

Lorna groaned, dropping her head into her hands.

"At least your kids don't quarrel almost every minute."

"Oh trust me, they do. And they're both mutants, so I get what you're going through."

Lorna huffed a soft laugh.

"Ugh. Sometimes I wish I hadn't had Lora and Dommie so early." She lifted the cup to her lips. "If you get what I mean."

"No me time isn't it?" Caitlin laughed softly. "Well, believe me when I say it'll get better when they grow older. You and Marcos will have all the time to fall in love the moment both of them hit puberty. But of course, there would be other problems. For Lora, boys. For Dommie, it would be girls."

"Oh God. Don't remind me." Caitlin laughed at the young mother. "I'd have to go all Polaris on boys for Lora and five years down the road, do the same for Dommie too."

Caitlin chuckled and patted Lorna's back.

"Don't worry too much. Both of you will find a way around this."

Lorna sincerely hoped so, because there was a limit to how many houses they could afford to destroy.

…..

Of course, when both her children had gotten past that stage of bickering and destroying everything with their powers, there were other problems to talk and worry about.

Like the increase in untimely times they barged in (or Lora barged in) when they were getting on their mojo.

"Hey Mom, why are there lights that look like my power around the entire place—Oh shit shit! My fucking eyes!"

"Allora Diaz-Dane!" Lorna gasped with all the dignity she could muster at her nineteen year old daughter as she pulled the bed sheet to cover up her chest. "Language!" Marcos groaned into her shoulder, both of them still flushed from their supposed nightly but shifted to afternoon daily activities.

Their daughter stood at the door, with both hands over her eyes.

The flickering northern lights that had attracted their daughter vanished alongside the lust and physical attraction Lorna and Marcos were feeling.

"Mom? Lora?" Lorna felt like kicking her daughter out as her fourteen year old son trumped up the stairs. "What's going on–"

"Out!" Lorna threw the pillow at her daughter. "And close the door on your way!"

The door slammed moments later, and the sound of her daughter cursing like a sailor with her brother half laughing behind sounded faintly through the air.

"Cock blocked." Marcos groaned. "I've never been so frustrated in my life." Lorna duck under the covers, and both of them stared at each other for a moment before laughter bubbled on their lips.

"God. This is horrible." Lorna chuckled. "I think we may have to kick them out."

"Well, Lora can stay with her boyfriend, Dommie's still too young. Besides, he's much more wise with regards to not disturbing us no matter the situation as compared to Lora." Marcos slid his arm around Lorna's waist as she threw on her husband's flannel shirt. "Hey! That's my shirt!"

"You've more. Get them from the cupboard yourself." Lorna shook out her green hair cheekily, before flouncing out the door.

She took a deep breath at the suddenly ominous looking staircase to the floor below.

The bed and Marcos seemed like a more appealing option now.

Lorna tapped her son's glass, her eyes trained on her spaced out daughter on the sofa.

"Hey."

"Uh mom." Dom mumbled, pulling of his earphones swiftly.

"What's wrong with your sister?" Her son's eyes followed hers to his stoned sibling, staring at nothing but a blank piece of wall.

"Oh." Lorna raised her eyebrows at her son's sudden hint of laughter in his tone. "It's nothing mom. Lora just found out the meaning behind the colour of her powers."

"And not to mention the funny funny looks and puns from Uncle Johnny and Aunt Clarisse when I use my powers!" Lorna suppressed a grin as her daughter flung a pillow into the air expressively, her fingers clutching her face. "Now I know why they always looked at me funny. Because my power is the same colour as what happens when you guys have sex!"

Dom snorted in his chair, and Lorna glared.

"Well, it's a clash of solar energy and magnetosphere." Lorna tried to explain as regally as she could. "It's a very beautiful phenomenon. It's what brought your father and I together."

"But the lights!" Lora moaned like all teenagers did. "Now I've got mixed feelings about my powers. Because every time I use then, I'm gonna get reminded of my dad and mom fucking each other."

"Ugh! Did you have to?" Lorna grinned slightly as her son gagged at the table.

"It's my crisis! Of course you wouldn't understand!" Her daughter's short hair bounced in greenish black curls around her face. "At least your power doesn't remind you of your old parents having sex."

"Excuse you. Your father and I are still considered young." Lorna pointed the knife she was holding in her daughter's direction. " We just had you early."

"Yeah right." Lora snorted. "More like Dad and you couldn't keep it in the pants, and I became the surprise untimely bundle."

Dommie grinned, enjoying his older Sister's chagrin.

"You were one too, Dommie. I bet you anything you came along because I cockblocked them some how and when I went for the training trip with Uncle Johnny, all that sexual tension released and they fucked like rabbits—thats why the Accident 2 came along."

"Hey hey hey! We are not doing this right now!" Lorna marched over to her children, who were physically grabbing each other with their hands and pulling them apart.

"Don't make me pin you to the wall."

"Mom. I control metal too." Lora deadpanned.

"I thought we established that pinning me to the wall isn't a good reminder for my powers. Courtesy of Loony Lora." Her son grumbled.

"Ow! Why did you hit me?!"

"Because you were being a jerk! Jerk!"

"Break it up!" Lorna caught her daughter and son's squabbling hands before sighing.

"Marcos!" She hollered down the hallway. "Your daughter and son are fighting again!"

"I heard." Marcos slid his arm around Lorna's waist comfortingly before stealing a kiss.

"Ugh, Dad!"

"God, Dad. What's with all that PDA?"

"You two weren't troubling your mom again, weren't you?" Marcos pulled his wife away from their two children, and immediately all four of them fell into their seats respectively, the atmosphere suddenly relaxed and filled with less tension.

"Nooo…" Lorna made a face as her children chorused simultaneously.

"Oh sure. Like you two weren't at loggerheads with each other just now." She snorted into her plate of food, picking the greens off Marco's plate out of habit. "Forgive me if I don't believe a single bit of that." She waved the fork in circles at her two children.

"Well! It was a crisis!" Lora immediately burst out. "What am I supposed to do when my powers are a direct reminder of you two having sex?"

"We're eating, Lora." Marco's tapped his fork against his plate. "Any talk about bedtime activities stays off the table."

"Correction. Any talk about our bedtime activities stays off not just the table, but any conversations." Lorna glared at her daughter warningly.

"What?! Where's the Justice of that?!" Lorna watched as her daughter huffed, before kicking Dom's chair huffily.

"I'm nearly done–stop kicking my chair!"

"Lora." Their daughter's eyes flashed to Marco's suddenly stern voice.

"Fine." Their teenaged daughter got up from her chair huffily. "I'll leave if you don't come out in five minutes. You can walk to school then."

Both of them watched as their son yelped, stuffing the bread and butter into his mouth rapidly before grabbing his school stuff messily and dashing out after his sister through the front door.

Marcos grinned at Lorna as she sighed a resigned breath.

"I'll get the plates."

"You know Caitlin told me that it'd get better with them hitting puberty." Lorna passed her empty plate to Marco's as he switched on the tap. "But I'm starting to miss the days where we were badly cockblocked and Lora and Dommie we're just five and one."

"It was hell back then too." Marcos chuckled, stealing yet another kiss from Lorna's lips.

"Still, it seems so much better than all these teenager things we're going through now."

She paused for a moment, her eyes landing on a recent family picture, her fingers tracing the similar goofy smiles on her children's faces.

"Regretting it?" Marcos wrapped his arms around her body, pulling her flush against him gently.

Lorna huffed out a soft laugh, leaning back into his embrace.

"Never."


	9. Lorna Learns Spanish From Allora

One Shot (9): Lorna/Marcos/Allora[OC/baby in the show that hasn't be born]/Dom[OC] Lorna Learns Spanish From A Five Year Old

"No! Escucha! It's ¡Hola, mi nombre es Lorna, not HouLah, mi nombre es Lorna, Mama!" Marcos stifled a smile as Allora's indignant voice echoed through the hallway. "Now say with me, ¡Hola!"

Their five year old sat on her knees, her bright hazel eyes wide and fervent, finishing her sentence with a vibrant toss of her small hands as she stared at a struggling Lorna, who was half torn between wanting to give up and not displeasing her daughter.

"Holah." Lorna shot her husband a look that almost spoke of despair.

Marcos couldn't help but laugh as their daughter gave a loud exaggerated groan, sinking and slumping to lie in exaggerated devastation on the ground.

"Noooo! You're saying it all wroooong!" Allora clutched her face in frustration. "You're saying it Holah when it's ¡Hola!"

"I think it sounds the same." Lorna deadpanned.

Marcos chuckled, and the sound of his laughter finally reached their daughter, who whipped up immediately, the mess of tangling curls tumbling over her shoulders.

"Papa! Tell Mama she's saying ¡Hola all wrong!"

"I think she's doing just fine, Mí Querída."

"Is not!" Allora exclaimed almost indignantly. "She's.. she's–" The frustration at being unable to express herself what she truly wanted to say adequately in English finally got to her, and Marcos watched as Lorna rolled her eyes in exasperation as their daughter burst into a stream of Spanish that he only understood. " ¡Está arruinando nuestro idioma! He estado media hora intentando enseñarle ¡Una palabra! Hola ¡Pero sigue diciendo Houlah!" Marcos chuckled as she whined, pulling his young pouting daughter into his arms as he sat next to Lorna, stealing a kiss from her lips in an attempt to comfort and appease her for leaving her with a kid hell bent on teaching her the art of Spanish Language 24 hours a day.

"You owe me twice. That's twice this week you've left me with her."

"Well, I thought you needed some mother daughter bonding time." Marcos teased as Lorna made a face.

"Sure, I'll appreciate it more when she stops trying to teach me Spanish." His wife grumbled back at him sarcastically.

"I thought you liked it! You said it was sexy and mysterious!"

"Yeah! But…it won't be anymore if I knew how to speak and understand the language, wouldn't it?" Lorna argued weakly, tempted by the knowledge that learning the new language would enable her to be able to uncover secret plots that her husband and daughter said and planned behind her back.

They'd both already pulled that secret conspiracy thing when planning for her birthday twice in a row, and she sure hell didn't want a strike three being three years in a row…and what was worse—they talked about the birthday surprise so blatantly in front of her in Spanish. Allora had a field day rubbing the success of the birthday surprise in her face for months.

"Then try and learn it." Marcos grinned amusedly at Lorna's huffy face. "It's ¡Hola."

Lorna stuck out her tongue and huffed, crossing her arms childishly.

"Holah."

"NOOOO!" Marcos grinned as their daughter made a loud protest in his arms again. "MAMA!" Allora sprawled herself across both of their laps, kicking her small feet into the air. "You're saying it wrong! Again!"

Marcos couldn't help but grin as Lorna sagged with defeat.

"It's more of a Oh-Lah than a HoLah." He explained patiently, writing carefully beneath the childish scrawl of his daughter's on the small green white board they had gotten her for her fifth birthday.

"Ohhhhhh!" Marcos grinned at the look of enlightenment on Lorna's face. "So that's how you pronounce it!"

"Hey!" Allora snapped her small arms to her hips. "I was teaching her very well, Papa!"

"Yeah, well, he explained it better." Lorna said offhandedly as Marcos tried not to face palm as his daughter gaped at the atrocious implication of her mother's words that she was a horrible teacher.

"Do not!" Allora stuck her tongue out at Lorna. "It's because you're dumb dumb!"

"Hey, hey! No saying that about your Mami." Marcos tried to be stern, torn between trying not to laugh at the tongue sticking fest his wife and their daughter was having. "Your Mami's smart. Smarter than me too."

Allora looked at him skeptically, and Lorna sniggered.

"Mentiroso!" Marcos tried not to grin at his young daughter's disbelief.

"I ain't the one lying, bebita." Allora looked caught between disbelief and belief at listening to her father's words.

She tilted her head for a moment, before decisively shaking her head.

"Mama can't even say ¡Hola properly–"

"¡Hola." Marcos guffawed as Lorna interrupted, pronouncing the word accurately, and Allora's face turned into one stuck between being delighted and mortified.

"Y-you said ¡Hola properly, Mama!"

"Mhm. Told you, I'm smart." Lorna caught her overjoyed daughter, who tripped over her feet in her excitement and landed sprawled in her arms as Lorna caught her in an embrace.

"I'm smart too!" Allora crowed. "I taught Mama to speak ¡Hola correctly!"

Lorna and Marcos both shared a grin.

"Sure, baby." Lorna chuckled lowly, pressing a kiss to her daughter's curls.

"Let's do the next word!" Allora squealed, and Lorna groaned lowly beneath her breath as her daughter pranced off to prepare for the next word.

"Don't worry, I'm still here to fall back on if she can't teach you." Marcos chuckled lowly.

Lorna huffed.

"Couldn't you have done that a bit earlier? All I needed was the right teacher, and not a hyperactive five year old one." Marcos grinned at his wife as she resigned herself to her fate, accepting the board from their daughter's eager hands and opening her mouth to practice the foreign words with studious effort and concentration.

Marcos simply grinned and chuckled, rubbing his hands over her shoulders soothingly and affectionately, and Lorna smiled lightly, leaning into his shoulders as they watched their daughter begin to teach with all her five year old enthusiasm the next word in the Spanish vocabulary.

…

They're having breakfast as a family fourteen years down the road, no longer on the run, and with an added additional son to their small tight knit family, when the topic of Spanish came up again like a broken record.

"Anoche nos bebimos una botella entera de Whisky." Lorna raised her eyebrows as her son announced, hoisting his sister with his shoulders as both teens slumped into their chairs with a groan, placing their heads on the table simultaneously.

"Oh wow." Lorna said sarcastically. "And it was to what kind of occasion that you had to have underage drinking?"

Her son groaned at her from beneath his heavy lidded eyes.

"It was because of that cabrón down the road." Dom moaned. "He dumped Allora for someone else and we had pity comfort drinks."

"So…it's over a boy." Lorna raised her eyebrows at her nineteen year old daughter. "And not the fact that you two wanted to have fun trying out alcohol? Because I'd think that reason to be more believable than the reason you just gave me."

"I told you she wouldn't believe that one!"She suppressed a grin as her son hissed at his sister, kicking Allora's shins with vehement accuracy before yelping at the metal that his sister had flicked at his forehead.

"Hey. No flicking metal projectiles on to your brother's forehead." Lorna snatched the ring that bounced off Dom's forehead, before green light flickered between her fingers, and the metal rings that sat on her daughter's fingers flew towards her hands. "I'm confiscating these."

Allora threw her hands up in annoyance, before groaning as her head protested.

"It's part of my wardrobe, Mom!" She moaned into the table. "I won't look half as cool as I usually do if I don't have them, and you used to wear them too!"

"Yeah, I used to wear them, but for practicality, not misguided fashion sense." Lorna waved the rings at her daughter. "And these don't match your dress."

"Then I'll wear my leather jacket, crop top and jeans then!" Allora growled. "Punk style." A grin twitched on Lorna's lips. Ever since Lorna had shown her daughter past photos of Marcos and herself in the Mutant Underground Headquarters, helping other mutants during her impressionable teenage years, Allora's wardrobe had changed drastically from flowery dresses to a style reminiscent of her style back then. Not that she was unhappy with that development—no, she was glad that her daughter had picked up certain traits that she liked about herself, alongside with that powerful desire to help others in need—that was the reason why she'd been so proud when Allora had drawn up a whole presentation arguing why Marcos and her should allow her to join the Mutant Underground Teen Forces that the school ran in the future when she was twelve, because it touched her heart to know that some part of the Justice Marcos and her had fought for back in the days was still present in their children, despite their very different lives.

"That should be more practical, but are you sure you want to go for a rescue mission half sober and with a pounding headache?" She rummaged through the cupboards for aspirin. "A split moment of hesitation might cost you your life if you go in there half prepared and not in good shape. " She heard her daughter mutter a Spanish curse under her breath. "Hey. Language."

Her own hazel eyes stared back at her from Allora's grumpy face, and she chuckled, running her hand affectionately through her daughter's curls.

"Alright, come here." She settled herself on the sofa, patting her lap as her daughter clambered on like a lumbering bear, before dropping her head on Lorna's legs with a groan.

"Lora! That isn't fair, I'm in pain too, so why can't I cuddle a bit!" Lorna grinned as Allora kicked her brother in the chest, swatting his face away as Dom tried to come close.

"Go away. Mama's mine." Her daughter huffed with as much dignity she could muster while lying incapacitated on her lap. "You go find Papa."

"No!" Her son protested immediately. "Do you know how weird it is for a guy and a guy that are related by blood to lie on the other's lap?" Allora looked at her brother with judging eyes.

"I ain't a guy, so nope." Lorna chuckled as her daughter deadpanned.

"Dom, you can sit on the other side." Her son shifted uncomfortably, then leant his head against a cushion instead.

"Nah. I'll pass." He blew the strands of his dark hair away from his eyes.

"Oh, this is a familiar scene." Lorna looked up as Marcos entered, eyebrows raised at their two incapacitated children. "Lora, you haven't taken to lying on your Mami's lap since you were what, four?"

"Five." Allora groaned, a hand over her eyes as Marcos leant over to peck Lorna's lips. "And that was when I was teaching Mama Spanish." She paused for a moment, sniggering at the expense of her headache. "She was so bad at it."

Lorna slapped her daughter's shoulder.

"I'm sorry, I speak Spanish just fine now, you cheeky little–"

"That was after six years after I taught you and with Dad helping." Allora snorted. "You weren't even fluent when Dommie was born!" She sat up, grinning slightly at her brother, who chortled. "You should have heard her pronounce refrigerador back then." A snort escaped from Allora's lips. "We were looking for a new refrigerator once at the Spanish Flea Market and mom totally gave up trying to ask for one in Spanish. Every time she asked for a refreegorifico they kept asking her to repeat."

"Oh yeah." Dom grinned. "In the end she was so done she just said refrigerator. She simplified it to, Hey, You know those things with the sticky doors that keep things cold? And they were so enlightened the moment she changed to English." Lorna rolled her eyes at her sniggering children.

"Sure, sure. Laugh at my expense. But at least I can say it quite well now." She pushed Allora off her lap, rising to go to the kitchen.

"No you can't!" Allora flopped herself over the back of the sofa. "It's still as hilarious as before, hearing you struggle over the pronunciation." She high fives her brother.

"And I though you both had a bad headache."

Lorna's eyebrows raised nearly to her hairline as both her children groaned as soon as the words were uttered from her mouth.

"Mom!"

"Did you have to remind us?"

Marcos chuckled.

"They do have a point. " He wrapped his arms around Lorna's waist as the two teenagers behind them pretended to barf. "Your pronunciation is quite terrible."

"Oh come on! Not you too! At least I bothered to learn the language." She grumbled.

Marcos grinned.

"I didn't say I didn't appreciate your effort, no matter how entertaining it was." Lorna slapped his chest huffily.

"Ohhhkay. You guys, can totally win this year's cheesiest couple award at the end of the year." Allora slowly turned to face the TV, tearing her eyes away from the sight she was so used to to roll her eyes in tandem with her brother.

"Correction, they can win it continuously like they always had every other year." Dom added drily.

"It's your father that's cheesy, not me."

She huffed as both her children stared at her with judgmental eyes.

"Riiiight." Allora echoed. "Sure, mom."

"Like you aren't as bad as he is." Dom grunted, shifting his weight slightly.

"I'm starting to think this plan of playing truant for school today isn't gonna work in our favour today." Dom hissed at his sister.

"What? Why? We're at home. Everything's great." Lorna and Marcos pretended not to eavesdrop on the two teenagers, and Marcos gripped Lorna's waist tightly to stop her from pouncing on their children for intending to play traunt at school.

"So you're saying we can survive the entire day with the cheesiest couple of the century? I'd rather die, Lora." Dominic grumbled, all traces of the headache that both had successfully pretended to have all gone.

"Alright! That's it!" Both teenagers jumped in their seats as Lorna shouted. "Both of you, change and get to school! I don't care if you're gonna do the walk of shame—"

"It's all your fault!"

"Boo! It's your fault for suggesting it in the first place! And to think we actually drank some alcohol to make it more believable!" Marco's tapped his fingers on the table silently, watching with interest as his wife swelled like a balloon at the two squibbling teens.

"Get your asses changed and in the car or I swear to God I'll pin you both to boards and frogmarch you to school!"

That mental image must have terrified their children, and Marcos chuckled as the space before them cleared in an instant, with the car horn honking as it left the driveway a split moment later.

"Effective as always with the kids, Lorna." He teased, watching her steam and fume quietly to herself. "Hey. Relax."

"Stop telling me to relax!" Lorna snapped, her shoulders relaxing by the minute as he massaged her stiff muscles with his warm hands. "I just can't even right now with those two—"

"Well at least they aren't on the run like we used to be." Lorna grew quiet at his words. "I'd take this attempt at truancy as an indication that at the very least we were successful at what we set out to do." Marcos wrapped her in a hug, swaying slightly from side to side. "To give mutants a new chance at a better and safer life." He grinned as Lauren called out a greeting from their window, her brother standing next to her with a smirk on his face, hands in his pockets.

"We did well, didn't we?" Lorna murmured. "It was so worth it. All that pain and hardwork." She smiled lightly, turning to face Marcos. "Si vale la pena hacerlo, vale la pena hacerlo bien."

Marcos grinned down slightly at her.

"I see you've done your homework on this." Lorna smirked at him smugly.

"I'm not as incompetent at Spanish as you three think." Marcos laughed, grabbing Lorna by the waist to swing her around and plant a kiss on her lips.

"Sí, sí, Mí Amor."

Si vale la pena hacerlo, vale la pena hacerlo bien. = If it's a job worth doing, it's worth doing it well.

Anoche nos bebimos una botella entera de Whisky. = We drank a whole bottle of whiskey last night.

cabrón = Bastard

Escucha!=Listen!

¡Hola, mi nombre es Lorna, not HouLah, mi nombre es Lorna, Mama! =It's Hello, my name is Lorna, not HouLah, my name Lorna, Mama!

" ¡Está arruinando nuestro idioma! He estado media hora intentando enseñarle ¡Una palabra! Hola ¡Pero sigue diciendo Houlah!"= She's ruining our language! I've spent the past hour teaching her how to say one word ¡Hola and she's keeps saying Holah!"

Mentiroso!= Liar!


	10. Lorna Learns Spanish From Marcos

One Shot (10): Lorna/Marcos Lorna Learns Spanish From Marcos

It is when they're in bed, safe from prison and tired from the breakout that she first hears him whisper a prayer in Spanish reverently as his hands grazed over her skin, lips sampling the supple skin of her collarbone as they rocked into each other.

She hadn't realised how much she'd missed him, his warmth, his heat and everything that made Marcos himself until they'd both fell into bed, a heated mess of longing and desire reaching through their bones, hands scrambling for each other's clothes—and its not long before, they're pressed tightly against each other, skin to skin, sloppy kisses and breathy gasps of love and reverence escaping their lips.

It almost brings tears to Lorna's eyes, because Marcos was being so gentle and yet so possessive at the same time, his hands grazing the skin of her stomach fleetingly yet reverently, as though afraid yet excited to feel the life thrumming beneath her skin that she carried.

A more logical part of her would remind her to thank John and Sonia for keeping the rest of the Mutant Underground away from the vault they called home, allowing some privacy for the reunited couple to reaquaint themselves intimately with each other.

She gasps as he drives himself deep into her, stirring a cry that he covers sloppily with his lips, a naughty smile on his face as a flush decorates her cheeks, her mind realising that he'd drawn out that cry on purpose.

She intends to reprimand him for that, because they have young teenaged ears in the floors above them—but Marcos snaps his hips so sharply and perfectly in that moment that every coherent thought flees to the recesses of her mind and all Lorna could do was just to simply gasp as she fell apart in his arms, stars bursting beneath her eyeslids as she slid her hands over her his face to pull him closer to her, their sweat mingling as he breathed a raspy laugh.

"Hermosa." He rasps with a low groan, and she laces her fingers with his, her chest heavy with his weight.

"What does that mean?" She asks softly, drawing his attention from her breast, and his warm liquid eyes meet her own hazel ones with a blazing clash of fierce adoration and love.

"Beautiful." He whispers the meaning back to her with such love and adoration that she feels tears slip past and down her eyes. He watches in silence, before passing his lips over the scar she had gotten on her shoulder blades, whispering rolling words of beauty that filled her very soul.

His lips travel the path from the tips of her fingers to the base of her face, before stopping at her lips, his breath ghosting over hers like a gentlest whisper of the sweetest breath.

He smiles that familiar crookish smile at her that has her laughter bubbling in her chest, then takes her breath away with his next phrase, as he brings their hands together, lighted with the most beautiful light in the world, glowing and twining around their fingers—just like the red string of fate that brought them both together, twined too tightly to ever be separated.

Their eyes don't leave the beautiful lights even as he murmurs a soft word of reverence, and their fingers tightened around each others with the silent assurance to never let go.

Marcos brushes his thumbs across the planes of her cheek, brushing away the hot tears that had slid their way down it's path on her cheeks.

"See?" He whispers to her with such firm resolution and affirmation, and she sees them as he had always seen. "Magnifico."

Magnifico= Magnificent


	11. Sleeping Habits

One Shot (11): Lorna/Marcos

Inspired: Inspired by Fluff idea from eclipsepolarisxauroraborealis tumblr

Prompt:

"Marcos x Lorna fluff

So Imagine one of the first night's Lorna is back and her and Marcos are laying in bed together, he notices that she's not sleeping on her stomach like she usually does and offhandedly asks why she's not, and she's like "well obviously" and it kind of catches up to him and wow how cute would that be someone WRITE THIS"

 _ **Sleeping Habits**_

In all the short years that Marcos had learnt about Lorna from sharing a small makeshift bed with her, was that she had an inclination to sleep atrociously on her stomach, no matter how comfortable the bed or big the bed they managed to crash in for the night was. Not even after they had sex, with his arms slung around her, she would wiggle until her stomach was flat on his arm and hands were clutching the pillows.

It was also one of the main reasons why Lorna loved to be the more dominant partner when they had sex—because that simply meant that when she got tired, she could just fall on her stomach on top of him and sleep.

Not that he was complaining about that…

He preferred to sleep on his side that was all.

So as soon as she'd fallen asleep on her stomach on top of him, he'd carefully turned her to the side to face him—and within moments, with a unconscious smack and push to his face, Lorna had somehow managed to turn and sleep in the exact same way she had while on top his body.

After at least hundred and one tries of correcting her sleeping postures, Marcos had given up in trying to change the way she slept.

After all, the old sayings did tell them to love people just the way they are, terrible habits and all. And if that meant accepting Lorna's atrocious sleeping habits, he'd gladly take it, since she was worth everything else and more.

So, he was utterly surprised when they'd fallen into bed right after the breakout and Lorna had turned to her side to sleep instead of simply flopping like a eagle onto their bedspread.

"Ohhhkay?" She turned at hearing the question in his voice, yawning lazily as she stretched, patting the empty space beside her .

"I'm cold." Those words were all it took for him to climb in with her and wrap her gently with his arms.

Lorna hummed.

"Okay. Why aren't you sleeping like you used to?"

"What are you talking about?"She peered at him through half closed eyelids, the hazel colours like the rainbow as she glanced up at him.

"You know, your atrocious sleeping habit of sleeping on your stomach—OOF!" He choked, then coughed as her foot kicked his sternum, knocking the wind out of his chest.

Lorna scowled.

"I do not have a atrocious sleeping habit."

Marcos grinned sheepishly.

"Besides, it should be obvious why I'm not sleeping on my stomach anymore." She ignored him and turned to her side, a soft sigh escaping her lips.

Marcos frowned, eyebrows tightly knotted in concentration.

"Why though?"

"Oh for goodness sake." He couldn't help but think that she was adorable as her cheeks flushed in embarrassment. She took his hand gently and placed it gently on her stomach, where despite not being noticeable, was slightly rounded and firm to the touch.

"Oh." Marcos' eyes widened, mouth opening. "Oh."

"Yeah. Oh." Lorna grinned at his stunned face.

"Really?" Excitement shone in his eyes, and Lorna huffed with disbelief.

"I can't believe you didn't really believe that I'm pregnant!"

"Well, in my defense I did hear it from that prosecutor, so I thought…" Marcos trailed off slightly, still sheepish.

"Nah, it's fine. I would have too, if I was in your place."

Eh?

Marcos felt a shiver run down his spine.

"Okay. That's just wrong, Lorna. I know they used to show pregnant men in movies, but that's just wrong." His girlfriend giggled as he finally caught on to her insinuation. "Just wrong!"

"What?" She played with the bedspread slightly. "I never said you could be pregnant, it could have been a terminal illness." She smiled slyly, and both of them grinned at each other, before collapsing into laughter.

He nuzzled her nose slightly and affectionately, pleased when she returned the gesture.

"I missed you." He breathed softly.

"Mhm. I missed you too. Those prison cells were even more atrocious than our makeshift beds. You'd think that with proper funding and all, they'd have at least proper beds and bed sheets, as well as people with higher and more amicable social skills." She ran her fingers through his hair.

"I'm sorry." Marcos murmured.

"For?" Lorna pushed his chest slightly, frowning.

"For leaving you all alone and not coming sooner." His fingers brushed her hair gently, the countless apologies at his lips and fingertips.

Lorna sighed softly.

"Well, I definitely preferred the option ofboth of us not being caught and jailed. Besides, it doesn't really matter now. After all, you still came for me either way. You must have tried so hard." She cupped his face. "And still got me out anyway." Pride was clear in her voice.

"I love you." Marcos choked slightly, tightening his arms protectively around her middle. "So much."

Lorna exhaled softly, a shy but gentle smile gracing her face.

"I love you too."


	12. Lorna Tells Marcos About Jail

_**One Shot (12): Lorna/Marcos**_

 _ **Lorna Tells Marcos About Her Time In Jail**_

 _ **Rated M**_

 _ **Prompt: recklessnesspersonified irenehogan-blog Polaris being a badass but secretly loving Marcos' cuddles at night+ Lorna tells Marcos she was kicked, he gets angry and possessive. They somehow find out the baby's okay and they celebrate.**_

Its quiet in the car when they're driving back from the breakout back towards headquarters.

Lorna has never had any qualms of not telling Marcos anything, even with people she didn't like in the car. But this was sensitive.

She nearly curled into herself as she thought back of her time in prison, and flinched openly as her mind drifted to the baby.

"Hey." His warm hands slide comfortingly across her back. "Something wrong?" She could see from the corner of her eyes that the other three in the car tried not to be intrusive by looking in another direction (well, John in a more subtle way) but couldn't help but be interested in what they were saying anyway.

So she shook her head in silence, shrugging off his hands awkwardly as though she didn't want them on her back.

But unfortunately, both Marcos and John clearly understood her more than they should have, because the moment she did that, both of their voices came sternly as though to reprimand her.

"Lorna." Her cheeks coloured at their silent reprimand.

"It's just something that happened in jail. Nothing much." Marcos stiffened slightly.

"In jail? Are you sure? Do you— do you need a doctor or something?" Panic started filling his voice.

"No." Lorna murmured softly, but her voice shook slightly as she curled further into herself. "The baby is fine. I think." She said in a small voice.

Immediately, the blonde lady and John stiffened.

"The baby?" John's tone was incredulous. "I mean, your scent kind of changed for the last few months or so but I assumed that was because you were sticking with Marcos so much that he had to rub off on you." He dropped his focus back to the steering wheel as Lorna reached his leg over and kicked the back of his chair childishly. "Okay fine! I'm sorry!" Lorna grinned lightly to herself as she retracted her offensive foot, before gently patting Marcos' hands, glad for John's momentary distraction.

"Lorna, what happened in jail?" Marcos kept his voice carefully neutral, but it shook with a hidden anger, like a calm before the storm. Lorna chewed her lip nervously. Perhaps this wasn't the good time to–

"Did they give you some checkups? Or at least make sure that your baby is okay?" The prosecutor's wife asked quietly. "I know that I might not be quite accurate with the treatment that they might have given you, but at the very least, if they knew you were pregnant they should have given a proper treatment–"

"Yeah, they knew alright." Lorna shot an offensive glare at Reed before crossing her arms, her mind taking her back to the atrocious officer that had came to her cell to mock her as the memory flashed through her mind. "Sure didn't change the kind of treatment I got because I was a mutie." She grumbled. "I still got locked in the solitary for something I didn't do and got kicked in the stomach by other inmates." She paused, eyes widening as she realised what had slipped her mouth in her fit of silent anger.

Her eyes turned to Marcos, who stared at her, before his hands pressed against hers urgently. John's hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly till his knuckles turned white, while the blonde haired lady fidgeted in her seat, face pale and slightly disbelieving.

"They kicked you in your stomach? Are you sure they knew that you were pregnant?"

Marcos hissed at her words, almost starting for the prosecutor's wife before Lorna's hands gently pulled him back.

"Are you ignorant or what?" Lorna felt insulted that the woman didn't believe her. What did she take her for? A girl that didn't take her child's life seriously? So much so that she'd joke about being kicked in the stomach while she was pregnant?

The hidden anger in her tone was enough to keep the lady quiet, Lorna guessed, because none of them spoke a single word as they made their way back to the headquarters.

…..

The consequences of spilling that tiny secret that she was kicked in her stomach was pretty much apparent when they finally settled down back at headquarters, and after Lorna had taken a nice warm bowl of soup that didn't send her heaving on the floor. She watched as Marcos paced the floor of their room vault, her spoon stirring the hot soup morosely.

He was brooding. Again.

Most likely because he knew she didn't like being coddled, and hence was struggling to convey his apparent concern for that kick that was still in the forefront of his mind.

Lorna thought it was cute.

And a fleeting smile crossed her face, before her snorts of laughter turned to full blown laughing hysterics. She was sure that everyone who heard her would pretty much have thought she was crazy. But it didn't matter, because Marcos was staring at her with a half stumped and sheepish look on his face.

"That obvious huh."

"Don't worry." She purred, sliding her arms over his shoulder and stealing a light kiss. "I think it's cute that you're so possessive, even though it annoys the crap out of me when you pace the floor." He smiled wryly, before his rough palms slide across her hips gently, tracing the slight curve of her stomach almost agressively.

"You know I'll never let anything happen to you." Marcos growled lowly under his breath. "Both of you. Not if I can help it." Lorna hummed at his words.

"Mhm."

"What?" Marcos glared at her slightly, as though challenging what she thought.

"I didn't say anything." She grinned as she felt him getting more riled up. "It's just that…everyone knows that I wear the pants of our relationship." Lorna left his arms, smiling teasingly at him before returning to her soup bowl, grinning slightly to herself as she felt him glower behind her agressively. "Not that I doubt the fact of how capable you are." Her eyes sauntered towards the open vault door.

Perhaps she should close it, in a event of…other..things happening. A shiver of anticipation fled down her spin as she grinned coyly, twitching her fingers as she felt the metal vault door respond and groan.

Just a little more.

She took her concentration off Marco's entirely, and sighed with exertion as the heavy door finally clanged shut, sealing them inside. John would know better than to let anyone disturb them. He'd learnt that when she closed the vault door, it meant some very scarring things to young eyes was going on in there.

Lorna chuckled at the memory of John's horrified face when he'd barged into her and Marcos in the middle of sex when he'd tried to consult her for her opinion after a meeting. He couldn't even look at her in the eye for weeks afterwards.

But, taking her eyes off Marco's was a bad mistake.

Her eyes flitted back to the empty space where he previously stood in surprise, before yelping as he shoved her possessively against the door, before claiming her lips with his own hungrily.

She moaned slightly in triumph, nibbling on his bottom lip before gasping as he rocked into her, and his tongue shot between her lips, leaving her both breathless and wanting for more.

She pulled away slightly, and he growled, fingers tightening at her hips almost painfully, but not enough to bruise.

Oops.

Perhaps she shouldn't have pushed him too much. Marcos was a possessive man, aggressive due to the dark times he'd spent in the cartel. He just kept that side of him hidden well, partly because it brought back bad memories, and the other was because she was badass enough for both of them in the Underground to make a point to everyone.

But on the other hand, Lorna truly enjoyed this animalistic side of him, because it made her feel comforted and wanted, and most specifically, not in a coddled way.

"Hey babe?" His voice pulled her from her thoughts, his eyes losing their dark hunger in them as he stared at her concerned.

Lorna growled slightly, jerking him forward to crash her lips into his.

She did not just come out of jail just to lose the rare Wilder side of her boyfriend just because he was concerned.

….

Marcos smirked slightly into their kiss, his fingers slipping beneath her shirt to her heated skin, the almost burning warmth of his skin against her own skin lighting her desire to even greater heights.

"We should stop before someone hears us." Marcos said breathlessly, between kisses.

Lorna made a soft noise of disagreement, before pulling his face back to hers, her fingers undoing his belt with a twitch of her fingers.

"You're being hasty." Marcos chuckled as he gripped her wrists, bringing them up over her head as she panted, pressed her hands to the wall.

"Marcos." She growled lowly, bucking slightly, her hazel eyes dilated and hungry for more.

"Lorna." He grinned teasingly, a equally lazy but animalistic smile on his lips, warning her. She huffed out her frustration as he pushed her back the moment she bucked forward towards his lips, and they struggled for a couple of moments, the power struggle shifting and changing almost every minute as they teased each other.

Lorna nearly raked her nails down his arm in her frustration, and Marcos chuckled lowly, before gently bringing her closer, nuzzling her nose and pressing her lips gently against his in a slow sweet kiss.

She nearly cried with relief as he finally unbuckled her jeans, her slim legs wiggling out of the restrictive cloth to curl around his waist before—

"Lorna! Marcos!" Lorna nearly growled with frustration as John's voice echoed outside the vault.

"Leave us alone! We're having an important discussion down here! A Very important discussion!" She turned Marcos' face back to face hers and slid her lips against his—before a loud pounding sounded incessantly on the vault door.

Lorna growled as Marcos chuckled in resignation, burying his head in her shoulder.

"Go away!" She hollered at her friend at the door. To make an emphasis, she shoved the vault door a little tighter, the metal straining and groaning.

The pounding stopped momentarily.

"Finally." She grumbled, before flipping over onto Marcos with a grin. "Let's continue–"

"If you don't open the door and be wearing decent clothes I will bust through the wall!" Lorna glared at the closed vault door before screaming in frustration back at John.

"Fine! Jerk!" She shimmied back into her pants, tossing Marcos his belt with a angry huff.

"Are you decent?" Lorna had half the mind to walk out there with nothing but her panties on just to see John's reaction in her righteous anger, before Marcos caught her wrist with a gentle squeeze.

"I'll make it up to you later." He chuckled, running a hand through his tousled hair.

"You better." Lorna huffed. "Or I might just consider pinning John to a metal wall one day so he'll stop interrupting us when we try to have sex."

"Lorna! Are you decent already?!" She threw open the vault door with a flick of her fingers, ready to glare at her friend outside the door, he hand resting aggressively against one side of the vault.

"What?!"

"Finally." John had his fingers stuffed in his ears as he glared back at her, while two teens and that blonde lady earlier in the car stood behind him, trying to look at anywhere but not at her.

"Caitlin's a nurse, so I thought it might be great if she could just check you out, since you're pregnant and all." Lorna nearly socked John in the face.

"Couldn't you have waited till morning?" She hissed. "In case you didn't know, Marcos and I were a little busy in here."

"Oh believe me, I did know." He tapped his ears, and she ignored him blatantly.

"Hey babe, I'll be at the workshop if you need me." Marcos stole a kiss from her lips, and her anger deflated almost entirely from her body.

"I..I know we probably aren't gonna be on best terms, but since you did mention a kick, I agreed with John that it might be best to check your condition out. Just to be sure. I may not be the best doctor to consult, but I can help you confirm some things." The blonde lady smiled tentatively.

Lorna glared at John.

"This was your idea?" She mouthed.

He shrugged, then grinned at her.

"Just check it out." He mouthed back.

"Fine. Make yourself comfortable." She let the three in, giving John the middle finger as she turned her back and walked into the vault.

…..

Marcos sighed as he worked on the car with his powers, the light sparking from his hands as he finished the last bit of his hobby job.

Lorna would be done with whatever John had looked her for, wouldn't she?

He got up with a groan, a twitch of a smile on his lips as he remembered his promise to his girlfriend upstairs.

"Hey." His eyes flashed in surprise as he notes John beside Sage and Sonia, and his eyebrows furrowed. "Weren't you with Lorna?"

"Oh, nah. If I'd stayed there longer she'd have throttled me for interrupting you two." Dreamer grinned at Marcos, shaking her head slightly.

"You two should go easy on Johnny, since he's the only one that hears everything here."

Marcos shrugged.

"Tell that to Lorna, not me. She's the one that you need to tell to be quiet." He grinned as his friends gave a groan at the excess information.

"So.. who's with her?"

"Caitlin. They're checking on her condition just in case." Marcos nodded, slightly worried. Even though Lorna had pretty much confirmed that their baby was healthy based on her feel of their child in her belly, he'd feel much less apprehensive with at least a professional nurse telling and affirming it.

"Marcos!" He whirled around just in time to catch a blur of green as Lorna hurtled into his arms, her face split into a wide happy grin, Caitlin and her kids trailing behind her with small smiles on their faces. His eyes found Caitlin's.

"She's fine." The nurse nodded slightly. "Both of them are perfectly healthy." Lorna wrapped her arms around him as a delighted smile spread across his face.

"I.. I…that's just great!"

"Yeah?" Lorna beamed at him happily, her exuberance and delight rubbing off on him.

He chuckled, gently pressing a kiss to her lips to convey his emotions.

"Go get a room, both of you!" Sonia called from her corner, grinning into the book she was reading. "Before we all see those lights again." The mutants that knew what she was talking about chuckled lightly. Marcos grinned, sliding his arm around his girlfriend's waist, watching as her cheeks flushed happily with colour.

"You're just jealous you can't do it with Johnny." Lorna retorted, drawing a scandalized gasp from Dreamer, and a pillow thrown in her direction by her best friend. He gladly let her slip her hand into his, his thumb gently carassing the back of her hand. "And we do have a room. It's just that none of you leave us alone." Lorna pulled Marcos down the stairs. "If you'd pardon us, we're gonna celebrate."

"Don't forget to soundproof and light proof so that none of us can see and hear!" Someone called out behind them, and Lorna grinned at her boyfriend, before shoving a middle finger up into the air amidst hearty laughter as they disappeared behind the vault doors.

 _ **Aaaand there it is! My first two prompts done xD**_

 _ **Hope it lives up to expectations! You can also find me on tumblr at selinaneveahcrystal where I write and post these one shots first before putting them up here. So if you want a frontline post of one shots you can go there. Or if you'd prefer to wait till I update here then so be it!**_

 _ **REVIEW**_

 _ **COMMENT :p**_


	13. Nightmares and Reassurances

One Shot (13): Lorna/Marcos

Prompt: From tumblr: lornamarcos like i know marcos is the soft one and lorna is the harder one in the relationship (as shown in tonight's episode), but i can't stop picturing lorna having nightmare flashbacks to prison at night in bed and marcos waking up because he knows something is wrong and comforting her has she cries and opens up about everything that happened

 _ **Nightmares and Reassurance**_

There's no need for Marcos to even ask around to know that something is wrong when he enters the HQ with John in tow after a day's raid at a far away food and medical supply store.

At first he thinks it's something that has gone wrong with the raid they lined up in the evening. That none of them got back, or worse, their friends being captured by the Sentinel Services. But that worry clears as soon as he sees them next to Sage, clutching at each other.

In fact, everyone in the HQ was huddled close together, clutching hands as though fearful of something that was about to happen.

"What? What happened?" He immediately dropped everything, his voice loud and worried as he strode over to Dreamer and Sage. "Is everything alright? Is Lorna okay?"

His questions were answered with the a loud groan of the building. The building itself shakes at it's foundations, groaning and creaking ominously as people cried out in fear, the metal fixtures bending at odd angles, some even being crushed beyond recognition.

There was no need for anyone to tell Marcos what was happening. He knew it instinctively.

"Shit. Lorna." He dashed down towards their vault room, the sound of her cries in his ears as he burst into the room, barely avoiding stray metal nails and fixtures that flew haphazardly all across his workshop and room as his girlfriend twisted in the sheets, pale, sweating and utterly terrified in her sleep.

"Lorna!" He reaches her, and immediately shakes her furiously, holding her solidly with his arms as she jerks awake with a scream.

He doesn't even ask her what's wrong, simply holding her tightly in his arms as she clings to him, gulping in deep breaths as she grounds herself back to reality.

"Hey hey hey." It's his voice that soothes her from her night terrors, and he curves his body around her protectively. It's an instictual thing to him, because as much as he knows that his girlfriend is badass and strong, she's also breakable and fragile. Even more so than anyone else because of the things she'd gone through. "I'm right here." He soothes.

Lorna doesn't even sob into his shoulder despite the tears in her eyes.

And he understands why she doesn't cry.

She's been strong all this while, fighting and being a tall pillar of strength, that she's automatically buried any sign of weakness that she needs or wants to show deep beneath her skin. But it's still there even though she hates being coddled, even though she hates being seen as weak, and Marcos understands her need to feel strong but yet comforted at the same time. It's a dynamic they both have, a deeper solid understanding of each other that make it seem like Lorna's wearing the pants in their relationship. He feeds her what she needs, and she is what anchors him to the good of this world.

It's crappy, but it works in a world that is unfair to their kind, in a world that gives them lemons and curve balls and forces them to find ways to work around those oddities instead of straight easy lines and lives.

"Hey." He doesn't even point out the fact that tears are sliding down her face, because it would make her embarrassed.

Lorna sniffles slightly, and he let's her push her face into his chest.

"I'll be right here when you're ready to share." He offered tentatively.

Her fingers curl in his shirt, damp from her tears and his sweat, and her eyes looks up at him, searching and pleading all at the same time. He shifts immediately, closing the vault door manually and coming to the sheets, opening his arms as he reclined back on their makeshift cot.

Lorna smiles through her tears, pulling herself tight against his warm body.

She'll tell him everything, but only when she's ready, and Marcos knows better than to force Lorna to do something she doesn't want to do.

He let's the silence reign between them gently for a long moment, his hand tracing circles comfortingly on her shoulders. It's warm, secure, rhythmic, and he feels her relax her tense muscles, and he simply let's himself drown in the scent of her, burying his nose in her hair to plant a kiss of assurance on the crown of her head.

She recognises his patience, and sighes almost reluctantly, her legs twining around his right as she shifts into a more comfortable position.

"It was a nightmare again." She starts off awkwardly, feeling the terror well in her chest again at the thought of the fading dream, based on the horrors she'd experienced in the jail.

Marcos hums, understanding, and his fingers tightened protectively over her body that's pressed tightly to his.

"It…was something that happened to me back in jail. I..was assaulted by a group of inmates…"

The story is hesitant, but true, and Marcos simply listens as the moon glows above them, his hands keeping her warm and secure like they always do, a reassurance and promise that whatever the matter, he would never abandon or leave her. There would be his own reservations and worries about the story she's told to him of course, but for now Lorna needed him to be the listening ear.

And that was all that mattered.


	14. Going Home

_**Going Home**_

 _ **Couple: Eclaris**_

 _ **Prompt from: simbagirl15 Marcos and Lorna feel the baby move for the first time + discuss about the family that threw him out+ the fact that Marcos said that his family was not so much his family (so I presumed that he must have had someone he missed back home/loved dearly)**_

 _ **Well, since Aurora got called by Lorna this episode, I guess I'll stop giving their little girl the name Aurora Allora xD**_

 _ **PS Just saying that I have no idea what goes with Columbian gangs, since I like all the way the other side of the world, so let me apologise first if I offended anyone with my insinuations in my fictional one shot.**_

 _ **Credits to: wereallmisfts for giving me the biggest idea about Aurora's powers and the partial reason why Lorna can feel her baby in her tummy. So I went along the line that Aurora has powers similar to Lorna, but more specific and super fine tuned that it senses automatically the electro magnetic aura of individuals and objects and she manifests them in the form of coloured lights that are quite similar to the Aurora Borealis. But because the electro magnetism of an individual is suceptible to change because of emotions, Aurora's ability also likes in being able to change the electromagnetic auras of an individual, which in turn affect their emotions. Something like an empath. She cans till control metal, but mildly and not as effective as Lorna because her powers lie in the more fine tuned aspects of electromagneticism. So the pros is she can cause widespread empathic situations to occur but cons is she only affects metal very vaguely. That means she can bend metal, but she can't shape it like Magneto and Polaris can, because her power is too specific.**_

"So…" Marcos raised an eyebrow at his girlfriend as she nestled at his side, playing with her fingers while her eyes stared into space.

"So what?" He nearly went back to reading his paper when he felt her shiver slightly, and goosebumps rise on her skin as a cool draft blew through their vault room. He immediately curved his arms around her, his eyes never leaving the paper as his right hand glowed dimly with pulsating warmth, running over her skin lightly where it felt freezingly cold. "Better?"

All he got was a low hum of appreciation that had him chuckling lowly.

"I was just thinking about this." Her fingers walked the skin his arm contemplatively. "Maybe when Aurora's born, we should make for a trip to Columbia." She glanced up hesitantly. "At least let your family know that they have a grandkid." She immediately regretted her request as soon as her boyfriend stiffens slightly at the mention of his real family. A rather fake laugh escaped his lips, the bad memories having left a terrible taste in his mouth from his youth.

"Yeah, we do not want to go back and see them. Believe me, babe." Lorna shrugged.

"I don't see any harm. I mean, they can't really do any physical harm to us. And I'm sure there's someone you miss there." She doesn't say that she sees the small photo he keeps in his wallet of the small tattered photo of him with his hands slung around a little girl and boy with his skin colouring and eyes, all three grinning like fools into the camera, the names inscribed in childish handwriting of the three children on the back of the tattered photo: Marcos, Eliana, Gabríel ; Together, forever and always.

She doesn't ask him more for any other information, just like he doesn't ask her about her long deceased family. It is a silent protocol they don't break, a rule that protects and hurts them all the same when they think about their families, that lost and abandoned them.

"Doesn't matter. They probably forgot me." His facial muscles twitched painfully, the talk about him missing someone at home dragging up painfully happy memories of another life that he'd long tossed aside.

"Tell me more about them." His head twisted towards her in surprise at her request. "I wanna know."

"Well.." Marcos trailed off slightly. "I had two younger siblings. Three years younger than me. And fraternal twins. We were really close." The words started tumbling out his mouth as he placed his hand over her hand on her belly, anchoring himself on reality as he drifted, recounting his happier times with his siblings. "Papa and Mami were always working, you know, never really home, and so it fell to me to take care of two little monster pranksters." A chuckle escaped his lips. "They were two twin troubles, but creative and utterly imaginative." The ache in his chest grew as he recalled the adoring looks in his siblings faces as he took them to the park and movies without their parents knowing, him teaching them to ride a bike without falling…

"Did they know about your powers?" Lorna played with his fingers quietly, watching the Aurora Borealis that they created with their fingers.

"….Yes." There was a painful beat before he replied. "I manifested in the streets while I was with them. We had ran into a gang that kinda disliked me." He chuckled slowly. "I was kind of the ladies man then, rugged and handsome." He teased as she slapped his chest, a twitch of a smile on her own lips.

"Narcissist." She poked his ribs, a silent ask for him to continue the story. The smile fell off his lips as he recalled the day he manifested his powers.

"Well, they had the grand idea of coming after me and my siblings. They'd taken Eliana and Gabríel as hostages and I was only thirteen." He choked slightly. "Columbian gangs aren't very subtle with their threats, and they brought my siblings with them to confront me when one of them had a better idea seeing my younger sister." His fists clenched, the light in his hands flickering slightly. "The cabrón had the idea that it would cause me eternal pain if I saw my sister raped in front of me. He was sixteen, and she was ten. " His left hand made a violent movement as his emotions caught up with him. "It didn't matter that she was only a small kid. To them, she was a girl they could destroy and use, so why not?" He said bitterly. " They started tearing Eliana's clothes off and she was screaming for me to help her, but there was other people pressing down on me…I just remembered getting so angry, frustrated and desperate for something to blind them with, to burn then away from her, and suddenly—" He lifted his hands lit with a blinding flash of pure white energy. "My hands started to blaze with white energy. I didn't know what I was doing then, but I was frantic to get those boys away from my siblings that I shot the energy at the boys. I don't really remember what happened exactly, but all I knew then was that my kid siblings were safe. The entire warehouse was in flames, and I was glowing, and there were bodies of dead boys all around from the explosion..and Gabriel was clutching onto Eliana and crying, and I knew I needed to get them out of the burning place, but there wasn't any way out." His Adam Apple bobbed as he swallowed.

"I realised that I could get close to the flames without feeling it being too hot or it burning me, so I took off my shirt and soaked it in the tank of water that the warehouse had and..and wrapped it the best I could around them. And then I picked them up and ran." He remembered the screams of his sister and brother as they watched the flames lick at his skin, the flail of arms and tears that wet his chest as he crashed through the burning timbre, his skin open to burning flames. "We made it out. But I had killed twenty boys in that warehouse with an explosion or something that my powers did." He shrugged slightly. "And while my siblings adored me, my parents saw me more as a liability that got into more trouble than I should. So they threw me out." He ended the story simply, fidgeting as Lorna stared at him with her wide eyes. "What?"

"You're a hero, you know that?" She whispered, capturing her hand with hers and smoothing her thumbs over his skin gently. "You saved your siblings. Did they…did they want to throw you out too?" Marcos smiled sadly.

"No. They opposed it. Gabriel thought I was a superhero." He chuckled. "They were the ones that made me feel that perhaps my powers weren't the worst thing to happen to me." A sigh escaped his lips. "But my parents saw me as a monster that could potentially hurt their other children that was more precious to them than I ever was."

Lorna made a low grunt of disgruntled disagreement.

"Remind me if I ever see your parents to beat into them the fact of how great you are." She snorted. "You saved your siblings and all they saw was something they didn't understand so they labelled it a monster. Stupidity at it's greatest if you asked me. " Marcos chuckled.

"Well if it makes you feel better, I did curse them out when they threw me out." Both of them chuckled slightly, their hands pressed comfortingly against Lorna's belly.

"We'll be the best kind of parents for our baby." Lorna swore quietly. "Promise me we won't repeat any of the mistakes any of our parents did for us." Marcos looked at her silently.

"We won't." He sighed slightly, his stance slightly relaxed as he exhaled. "Whew. I needed to get that out of my system." He leaned in for a kiss. "Thank you, babe." Lorna hummed, reciprocating the kiss with a press of her own. "God, I love you so much." Both of them smiled at each other, before a thump against their hands interrupted their thoughts.

"And I love you too, tiny peanut." Marcos chuckled, before it registered to him what had just happened. "Did..did you feel that? She kicked! Oh my God!" Lorna's cheeks flushed alongside his excitement. "Wait.." Both of them paused, and Marcos smoothed his hands gently over Lorna's rounded belly. "Hi peanut." He cooed, and a responding kick was awarded solidly to his hand.

"Awh. Just look at you." Lorna teased. "All wrapped around her little fingers." She rubbed her belly slightly. "You've got to stop kicking Mommy, baby. It's getting uncomfortable. " A lighter tap tapped against her palm this time, like a soft response to her request, and Lorna gave Marcos an excited smile.

"Did you see that? She understands." Marcos beamed proudly at her.

"Of course she does. She's a smart but weird kid."

"No!" Lorna pushed him laughingly over her belly. "Remove that weird and try again." Marcos smiled goofily at his girlfriend, before wrapping her into a tight hug, their laughter gently drifting into the dark night.

...

"You sure this is the place?" Lorna gently cradled Aurora in her arms as they stood outside a landed property. "You never told me you were rich."

"Well, in my defense, we were one of the better off families in the area." His eyebrows furrowed. "And my God, is that a pool? I don't remember a pool in my old house. Shit. Maybe it's the wrong house."

"Language!" Lorna hissed, covering her baby's ears as Aurora gurgled and suckled on her thumb.

"Sorry, peanut." Marcos pinched their daughter's cheeks slightly, and watched with delight as a tendrils of drifting light wrapped around his wrist affectionately, glowing his characteristic white yellow shimmering lights as his daughter rested her head on Lorna's shoulder and babbled slightly.

They had found out about Aurora's mutation the moment she was born. She had the ability to manipulate metal in a smaller extent as compared to her mother, but had a wider range of sensitivity to electrical, magnetic and solar energy. Hence, she was able to manifest the rare electro magnetic auras that people tended to have within a few feet of their body, sensing where they were even if they were hidden. It was also something more on the lines of an empathy too, because she tended to alter emotions when she was feeling decidedly happy or otherwise. Once, they had tried out to see how badly yet empathic abilities affected people around her, and had placed her in the centre of the HQ, while Marcos tickled her and made funny faces, sending her into fits of gurgling laughter. Needless to say, the effective two blocks radius of laughing people was more than enough to say how sensitive their daughter was to the electromagnetic fields of individuals and how impactful her empathic abilities that cane with those sensing abilities were.

Marcos smiled tenderly as Lorna grinned back at him, running her hand through their daughter's messy greenish black curls. Their daughter was perhaps the perfect mix of both of them, her olive skin and a perfect balance between the darker complexion Marcos had and fair complexion that Lorna had. Her eyes were entirely Lorna's, and Marcos could never refuse her when she gazed at him with puppy dog eyes so reminiscent to her mother's own, and her long lashes that fluttered in her sleep as she yawned. Her lips were a soft pink shell colour, and was plump and decidedly cute and kissable. Marcos decided that he was going to have to be her knight that defended her honour as she grew up, because their little girl was a stunning individual that would perhaps stun everyone with her beauty wherever she went.

"Marcos!" Lorna hissed as footsteps echoed close to the door, and the familiar bout of Spanish echoed behind the door.

"Coming coming!" The door swung open to reveal a lean girl teen, her long curling her falling to her waist, her eyes a warm chocolate brown and her mouth open in a wide o of surprise.

Marcos smiled tentatively.

She'd grown all up from that small impressionable and mischevious little girl to a lanky and slim teenager, with curves and a bright smile.

"¡Hola, El Hermosa." Marcos breathed nervously. He shifted his weight from foot to foot as silence ensued awkwardly before the lanky girl shook her head in surprise.

"Marcos?" The shock and surprise was apparent in her voice before it gave away to extreme delight and she leapt into his arms. "Marcos! ¡Te extrañe!" Lorna watched with pride as her husband caught his sister with surprise on his face that broke away into a shy smile. "¿Dónde has estado?"

"Everywhere. Just not back home." Lorna knew that Marcos replied back in English for her benefit, and she turned slightly, letting him have his moment with his sister while she shifted Aurora's weight in her hands.

"Gabríel!" She heard the girl turn and call shrilly. "¡Marcos regresó!" There was a shatter of glass in the kitchen, before two different sets of footsteps coming to the door.

One heavy set, the other, light footed.

"Hermano!" Marcos was trying not to cry, Lorna could tell, as his brother captured him in a wide hug. Gabríel was in every way a leaner and taller Marcos. A considerable feat, considering the fact that Marcos was a whopping 1.85. She suddenly felt like a nervous teen in love again as Marcos and his siblings glanced at her, a wide grin of Marcos' face as he held out a hand to her.

Her brave, stupid foolish man.

Her heart swelled at the thought.

"This is Lorna." There was a quiet but protective and affectionate action in the way he pulled her intimately against his body, and Lorna felt a warm surge of affection for the man that held her heart. "My wife, and this little peanut here is Aurora." He looked up at his siblings with a gentle smile. "Our daughter."

His brother stared at her with slight awe in his eyes that made Lorna want to laugh.

"You know El hermano has powers, right?" There was a sharp edge to the teen's voice. "And do you accept it?" His voice was oddly hard.

"Gabriel!" Eliana hissed beside him, tugging on her twin's arm.

"Of course I do." She watches with satisfaction as Gabríel relaxes at her words.

"And you will never leave him?"

Lorna chuckled as Marcos scratched his neck sheepishly.

"Why would I?" She leaned back smugly into Marcos, with a "I told you so" written right on her face. "Besides, I have powers too." She let her powers pick up a stray metal piece from nearby.

"Cool!" She grinned widely as Gabriel's eyes flashed excitedly. "Not as cool as El hermano's powers of course. He's the coolest. He saved us you know." Surprise was clear in Marcos' face as his brother proudly stated his views on his powers.

"I know." Lorna said quietly, her hand slipping into Marcos' own. "He told me. He doesn't believe he's a hero, you know." She said conspiratorially. "He doesn't really like his powers."

"Lorna!" Marcos nudged her slightly, a resigned grin on his face.

"Eh. It's because our parents don't know better."Eliana spoke up this time. "If I were to say this I'd say that they're idiots. Who don't know better." Her hand pressed on Marcos' shoulder comfortingly.

Their peaceful camadarie was interrupted by a angry loud retort from behind the twins.

"You! What are you doing back here?!" The large hulking man that looked nothing like his son's looked in the doorway.

"¡Hola to you too, Papa." Marcos said grudgingly.

"Get out of my house. ¡Tu no eres bienvenido aqui!" Lorna felt a well of anger boil in her as Marcos flinched slightly.

"Hey! " Marcos tried to pull her back as she stepped forward, Aurora still half asleep in her arms. "Don't you dare talk to him that way!"

"And you are?" The big bully of a old man sneered, but Lorna wasn't afraid. She glowered at his sneer, but his imposing figure still failed to instill almost any fear in her.

"Lorna Dane. Lorna Diaz-Dane." A flicker of recognition seeps into the old man's eyes as he hears her last name. "I am the wife of your son." She prodded his chest angrily. "And you're nothing but a fool!" Marcos jerked her back as his father swung a fist angrily in her direction, snapping his body forward and shielding her from the blow. The shriek that fell from her mouth woke her daughter, who wailed at her interrupted slumber.

"You!" Lorna hissed angrily, one hand comforting her young child, and she swiftly pinned the large Man by his belt to the wall. "I should kill you for hitting Marcos!" She shrieked as her daughter wailed in her arms.

"Lorna!" Marcos gripped her hand tightly just as the metal chains tightened almost unbearably around the old hulking man's throat. "Forget it! You're scaring Aurora." Lorna snapped to attention immediately at the mention of her daughter, and her eyes fell to her little daughter, who wailed her lungs out, little hands fisted in her shirt, tears running down her tiny face as she lost control of her powers in her distress.

Marcos and Lorna glanced at each other in alarm as the glimmering black and red lights rose slowly from their daughter's body, and then exploded into the air, almost blanketing the entire neighbourhood.

Aurora screamed half in anger and half in terror as she clung to Lorna, her empathic powers twisting all of their emotions to rage filled ones, her intense fear and rage taking precedence over all over emotions.

"What…" Marcos watched with horror as his brother and sister cowered in a corner, their own feelings a messed up jumble of emotions. Aurora hadn't intended to impact them, she was simply lashing out in accordance to her fear and the feedback she got from her mother's anger.

"Lorna! You have to calm her down!" He hollered over the sudden cacophony of angry shouts as everyone in the neighborhood reacted instinctively on the rage and anger Aurora had pulled out and amplified. Fists beating flesh sounded close to their ears, and screams of pain and distress welled from almost every corner and every direction.

It only served to increase Aurora's fear and anger, and soon screams of terror filled the air as Lorna tried to calm down her little baby, almost to no avail. Aurora quieted slightly, still sniffling momentarily as she clung to her mother almost desperately. The black red lights sparked, then dimmed to almost nothing before it resumed it's regular purplish green hue, pretty and sparkling, as Marcos cupped some broken glass in his hands and gave his daughter a mini light show.

Aurora reached curiously for the broken glass, and Lorna snatched her hand just centimeters away from the shattered fragments, exhaling slightly in relief. Her daughter turned to her curiously for a moment before becoming content with stuffing her fingers in her mouth like all babies should, and Lorna glanced at Marcos worriedly.

"We should leave. The Sentinel Services probably would have heard of this by now."

"See what you did here? Bringing a freak lady and freak child to my house and causing all this—" The old man didn't even get to finish his sentence before Marcos tore his blazing fists into him, without remorse.

"You can say anything you'd like about me, but the line draws where you insult my family. My wife, my child." The pudgy old man coughed, blood spurting from the mess of a broken nose and teeth, his face sporting some serious burns. "At the very least, I'm glad you disowned me, because I found my true family after that." He turned towards his younger siblings. "Of course, with an exclusion of you two." Marcos said quietly. "You'd always be my younger brother and sister. And we'll welcome visits if you'd want to." He smiled tentatively as the twins brightened.

"Yes!" Eliana threw her arms around Marcos before planting a kiss on Lorna's cheek affectionately. Her fingers gently touched the chubby cheeks of her niece.

"She's beautiful." Lorna watched quietly with a smile as Eliana's face widened into an adoring smile at the little girl in her arms.

"Well, she's half of your brother." Lorna chuckled. "So of course she'd be beautiful." A tender smile crossed her lips.

"¡No! Eliana, tú y tu hermano no pueden visitar a Marcos, ¿entendido? ¡No lo puedo permitir!" Lorna growled as the old man interrupted them again, and she felt her daughter's fear peak as he stalked forward, as though about to hit Eliana.

"Eliana! We're leaving!" All head whipped around to the long forgotten Gabríel, who tossed a filled bag at his sister, a scowl on his face.

"What?" The teen stalked forward, almost boiling with anger as he walked past his father to stand next to Marcos.

"Are you deaf or you purposely didn't hear me? Do I need to translate to Spanish for you to understand? ¡Nos vamos! ¡No nos quedaremos! ¡Vamos con Marcos!" There was almost a violent tone to his vehement voice.

"You cannot leave these premises—"

"Oh yeah? Try me. We're nineteen, way past the legal age to make a living outside without your help, thank you very much." Gabriel snapped. "I will not have you insult El hermano and his child in front of me no longer! Puedes negarme todo lo que me importa, ¡todavía voy con Marcos!" Lorna stared, slightly stunned as the older twin grabbed Eliana's hand and dragged her out of the compound. "I packed your stuff for you already–"

"You went through my stuff? Gabriel you—" Their squibbling voices echoed from the front gate.

"Hey! You coming or not?" Marcos stared after his younger siblings with a brighter twinkle in his eyes, and Lorna slipped her hand into his.

"Well, who knew?" She teased, still bouncing their daughter slightly on her hip. "I told you they'd want you back. They love you too much not to care." She murmured. "Let's go." She pulled a stupefied Marcos forward with a chuckle, and waved her hand, barring the gates with reinforced steel as the hulking man started after them.

"You're not following us." She glared back at the man her husband used to call father. "I'm never having you and your poisonous air near my child ever again." The metal gates bent inwards threateningly, pointing their sharpened heads at the old man, before both Lorna and Marcos disappeared down the drive, with two extra teens in tow.

 _ **¡No! Eliana, tú y tu hermano no pueden visitar a Marcos, ¿entendido? ¡No lo puedo permitir! : No! Eliana, you and your brother will not visit Marcos, understand? I do not allow it!**_

 _ **¡Nos vamos! ¡No nos quedaremos! ¡Vamos con Marcos! : We're leaving! We're not staying! We're leaving with Marcos!**_

 _ **Puedes negarme todo lo que me importa, ¡todavía voy con Marcos! : You can disown me for all I care, but I'm still leaving with Marcos!**_

 _ **¡Te extrañe! : You're back!**_

 _ **¿Dónde has estado? : Where have you been?**_

 _ **¡Marcos regresó! : Marcos is back!**_

 _ **¡Tu no eres bienvenido aqui! : You're not welcome here!**_

 _ **And yes, I used Google Translate For the Spanish.**_


	15. Lorna Starts To Show

_**Lorna Starts To Show**_

 _ **Prompt from anonymous: Lorna starts to show and Marcos and her realise that they've got to tell everyone.**_

Marcos would have liked to say that the day started out almost like every other day—with the sun warm on his half covered naked body, and his arm securely around Lorna's own lithe shape, curled and moulded to his side.

But it didn't.

The first stark difference was the fact that Lorna, wasn't in bed with him. Marcos turns groggily, his arm sweeping over the cold area of their makeshift cot where Lorna's body should have lain, when a flash of light catches his eyes.

He squints, and smiles goofily at the sight of Lorna in front of a full length mirror, the sun castina warm glow in the pale smooth skin of her back and the rounded perfect bottom—

"We have a crisis." His eyes snap from her bottom to her beautiful face immediately.

"What?" He sits up slightly, and opens his arms to hold her as she flits towards the edge of their makeshift bed. "What's wrong?"

"I look like a whale!" He tries not to laugh desperately as Lorna despairs.

"You look beautiful." He promises, the corners of his lips twitching. "Nothing like a whale, I promise you." Lorna growls at him, then huffs.

"Liar. It's all your fault I'm like this."

Marcos flings up his hands.

"It was mutual, babe. I don't think I remember you complaining—" He chokes as her foot finds his sternum with deadly accuracy."Damn, I swear, it's like being pregnant makes you stronger or something." He mutters rubbing the place where she'd kicked him as Lorna gives him the evil eye.

"No, but seriously. You have never looked so beautiful." He pressed a kiss to her knuckles as her face crumples.

"But look!" She pulls on her regular wear with vengeance, and Marcos' mouth drops open slightly.

 _Oh._

So it's _that_ crisis.

He grins sheepishly at his girlfriend, who glares down at her rounded tummy, slightly protruding from her shirt, and no longer being hidden by the dark material.

"Well, it was gonna happen eventually." He offers his hand to her, pulling her gently and kissing her neck in reassurance.

"Well, I didn't think it'd be so obvious soon! Now John's gonna be so insufferable about it." She pulls a face. "And Sonia and Sage won't let me do anymore rescue missions."

"Well, I was thinking of requesting you to be put off missions for a while, at least until the little peanut is born." Lorna gasps with something akin to horror and betrayal.

"You would not!"

"Well, you don't move as smoothly as before. The baby's hindering your movements." He senses as she relaxed slightly, grateful that things didn't escalate to one of her fouler moods. "And you're starting to lumber." He chuckles, warning a warning nip on his neck from his half naked girlfriend.

"I'm dreading having to be in bed rest." Lorna deflates visibly. "You know I can't be in bed rest, I have to—"

"I know." He cuts her off. "It's untimely, but I wouldn't change anything in the world." His hands find her rounded belly tenderly, and her fingers find his, both of them cupping her stomach and sharing a shy smile as he presses a kiss against her belly.

"So…it's time to tell them?" Lorna glances at him, defeated. "And I swear, if I hear a single joke about our lights coming from their lips I will whale on them like a pregnant mama should." Marcos chuckles as she bundles her lengthening hair into a bun, nervously pulling on her shirt, before stopping at her jeans.

"Oh great." He laughs openly at her expense as she tries and fails to button her slim jeans together, the small belly getting in the way.

"Stop laughing! It's not even funny!" She really throws something at his head this time, and Marcos grins as he rubs a comforting hand across her back.

"I'll look around for some elastic pants." He teases, much to Lorna's mortification.

"You're mean! Marcos Diaz, you're mean." She yelps as he drags her out of their vault room, quickly compromising with one of his belts to tie her half buttoned pants together. She flings his hand away, half fuming as he drags her into the middle of the headquarters. People glance around in surprise as he leaves her standing in the middle, disappearing into a storeroom to rummage for the dreaded elastic pants she'd have to wear for the rest of her pregnant days.

"Hey Lorna!" Lorna grumbles as a chorus of voices greet her.

"You look good today." She starts as Sonia's voice sounds from right behind her, amused. "And you're _glowing_."

"Oh I am not!" She growls lowly at her red headed friend. "Not a single word about glowing or I'll rip—"

"Lorna!" She relaxes at the sound of Marcos' voice, but sags as he brings John with him, his right hand holding the elastic pants.

"Find me a hole to hide now. Or someone share their invisibility with me." She moans as he grins at her, handing her the elastic pants. People are starting to gather curiously, because for all the things she's done, Lorna is never one to wear terrible looking clothes–which, of course, would be broken by that horrendous pair of elastic pants that her boyfriend hands her.

"I am not wearing this." She announces, much to the amusement of Marcos and the confusion of the people around her. "I am so not wearing this."

"Marcos, your taste for clothes must have degraded. You know there's only a one percent chance or probability that Lorna's actually gonna wear this pants." Sage picks the pants out of Lorna's hands to toss it back to Marcos. Lorna's cheeks flame.

She could sense his gloating from where she stood.

And _yep._

He was _so_ gonna break the news right here right now.

 _No._ She mouthes at him. _No, don't you even dare._

He grins that damned affectionate cute grin that has her melting like a piece of good before shrugging.

"Oh I don't know, Sage— after all, Lorna can't fit into her pants anymore. And won't be able to in the few months after." She sags, defeated as Caitlin's eyes widen.

"You're _pregnant_!" The instinct of a mother is beyond accurate, and the revealation of their coming child is spread amidst terrible confusion and a mix of congratulations and chorusing joy. Marcos finds her amidst all the loud clamouring and presses a kiss to her temple as random people begin to shake her hand(she was not amused by this. Not at all.), chuckling in her ear as she struggles to hold on to her temper. She growls lowly under her breath, and feels a smudge of satisfaction as she stomps vengefully on his foot and he yelps, because this was not how she had imagined her day to start off and be like.

Nope.

Not at all.

 _ **Technically I wrote this at 1:20am in the wee hours of the morning when my brain demands for sleep.**_

 _ **So it's not the best of what I can do (I'm sure it would have been better if my yawning hadn't interrupted my multiple trends of thought.)**_

 _ **T_T**_

 _ **Reviews and Comments are like the water to my food.**_


	16. Marcos Tries To Fix A Baby Crib

**_Marcos Tries To Fix a Baby Crib_**

 ** _Prompt: irenehogan-blog Marcos trying to put together the crib but the instructions are in Swedish and Lorna isn't helping_**

It is by pure luck that they've managed to scavange a baby crib from one of the richer neighbourhoods.

It's rickety and fully of wooden splints, but Marcos reckons that they'll have to make do with making it better until John comes back with a full blown grin, a fresh and brand new baby crib unassembled under his muscular arms.

"No way." Marcos has the urge to laugh as John hands him the crib.

"Well, don't you be expecting a Christmas present from me." John teases him, careful to stay out of the way of the not yet visibly pregnant but still extreme cranky Lorna. "This crib's gonna be that early Christmas present." Marcos cackles, then grins.

"So what? All my birthday presents and festival presents are gonna be baby things?" John shrugs.

"Well, Clarisse got a baby mobile, and Sonia got diapers." Marcos tries to go for a sad sagging of his shoulders.

"So Lorna and I ain't gonna get good presents this year."

"Oh no. Just you. I'm not risking my head not getting Lorna a present for the festivities." He pats Marcos' shoulder lightly in consolation. He thrusts the crib and it's box in Marcos' face. "Well, get cracking, Daddy to be." Marcos snorts a laugh, before shoving a middle finger at John's face, taking the crib under his arm.

He's careful to avoid all the possible places that Lorna can be in—she's volatile at the mere mention of their baby, most probably because Caitlin has entirely barred her from venturing out for any rescue missions upon hearing that she'd been kicked solidly in the stomach in jail. They've had to drag her back to bed rest more than thrice _(she nearly succeeded in sneaking out in her third attempt by hiding in the getaway van_ ), and Marcos winces at the memory of her nails digging into his wrists, then the metal fixtures flying at their heads as Lorna flew into a rage at the restrictions they imposed on her.

He let's out a low breath of relief when he manages to sneak into their vault room at the basement. It's not that she's not happy with the news of the baby—she was simply frustrated that she wasn't able to help protect more mutants in her dangerous pregnancy stages. Confining her to a bed rest simply went against everything she aimed and wanted to be.

"Is that a crib I'm seeing?"

Fuck.

 _Fuckity fuck fuck._

Marcos stiffened as Lorna slides from the shadows in their vault room.

He's _so_ dead.

She's so gonna hang him from the lampost outside their headquarters.

"Uh, hey babe." He tries to go for the cool casual tone that is suffice to say—doesn't work a single bit on his pregnant but temperamental girlfriend. "I was just…wondering where you were!"

Yep. Way to go Diaz. If she wasn't gonna hang you from the lampost just now, she's definitely gonna do so now.

Lorna gives him that typical eyebrow raise that would have turned him on if he wasn't so afraid what her volatile temperament might actually do to him.

"Okay…" He exhaled lightly as she simply sinks into the bean couch they'd stitched out of boredom a few years ago _(she'd demanded it to help better her control of metal, and we'll, he had nothing to do then_ ).

He stares at her, muscles locked and tentative.

"What? " His girlfriend raises two eyebrows at him this time. "Go on. Don't let me stop you."

"Uh huh." Sensing that she was in one of her happier moods, Marcos nods, sweeping aside the trash left over from his hobby of fixing things to clear a space for himself to fix the crib. "John got it. It's new."

"Mhm. Very nice." Marcos chuckles at her clipped answers, and decides not to tell her that she was being cute in her attempt to pretend that she wasn't watching him, because she was reading her book upside down.

The crib falls in unassembled pieces to the ground, and his fingers pick up the instructions to read through–before he gives a huge groan.

"It's in Swedish. Dammit. How am I supposed to know how to do this?" Lorna snorts with laughter at his reaction.

"Or we could just leave things aside, and then let our baby sleep in the makeshift cot with us."

"Right. Like that'll happen." Marcos glances skeptically at his girlfriend. "Care to help?" A glint of her teeth glints mischeviously from behind the still upside down book right smack at him.

"Nope." Lorna pops the 'p', enjoying the sour look on his face as he turns back to the mess that's supposed to look like a crib. "I'm supposed to be on bed rest." She adds drily, letting her annoyance seep into her tone quickly.

"It's just for precautions, babe." He starts working tediously on the crib, grunting slightly as he tries to fit the joints together. Marcos watches as her face dissolves into one of understanding reluctance.

"I know." She grumbles. "But still! I feel like I've been punished." Her long legs curl to her chin grudgingly. "And beds are hateful." Marcos raised his eyebrows at her.

"Well, I didn't hear you complaining last night." Lorna flushes at that, before throwing a pillow at his face. Marcos chuckles, then avoids the rough throw with a simple shift backwards.

"You're horrible, you know that?" She complains, a twitch of a smile on her lips.

"Am I? I seem to be the only reason that's keeping you in bed. Not that I'm complaining, of course." He grins as she wiggles her foot, shimmying out of her jeans because it's just way too hot. "Okay..hush please." He tries to focus on the wooden crib, and cheers lightly as he manages to fix the bottom half of the crib—after two hours.

Lorna's sound asleep on the couch, her mouth wide open and her hands splayed out wide, having entirely fallen asleep while watching him concentrate so fully on the swedish crib. He snorts, then turns back his attention to the white crib that sits despairingly in front of him. His eyes land on the swedish instructions manual and he contemplates actually finding someone swedish to help translate the fucking book for him before his pride stops his feet and plants him right back on the floor in front of a half done crib.

...

"Not again!" Lorna wakes groggily to the crash of something wooden against the hard surface of the floor. She rubs her eyes, stretching out the knots in her muscles as she glances blearily at her boyfriend, who simply glared angrily at the pieces of the wooden crib that had fallen apart.

She glanced at her watch, then lifted her head in surprise at the night sky.

 _7:36pm._

She'd slept for six hours.

Lorna yawns, before it registers to her that her frustrated boyfriend has spent six entire hours, working repeatedly on the failed crib scattered on the floor.

"You spent six hours on that thing."

"Don't even go there." She tries not to laugh as he scowls at her. "Perhaps it might have been a little faster if you'd tried to help." He huffed.

"Well, I would have made it faster if the manual was in German, not Swedish." She's entirely amused with the frustration he's experiencing, and she bends to pick a piece of the wood between her fingers, browsing lightly through the manual. "You're really terrible at this, Diaz." She shoved the English translation that's plastered right at the back, upside down, on the manual right in his face.

Lorna watches as Marcos grunts, his eyes staring accusingly at the translation before he throws the wooden plank he'd been holding to the side.

Lorna guesses that it's his manly pride that prevents him from saying anything, because his cheeks are flushed as he works on the crib with renewed vengeance and odd vigour. She yawns, feeling almost entirely too lazy to continue sauntering around their room ( _it was the only place she could walk around, because Marcos is kinda lax with her bed rest issue_ ) when Marcos opens his mouth.

"Shouldn't you be resting in bed?" She decides that it's the injury to his manly pride that has made him bring out the topic of her bed rest, and she obediently flops on their bed, a sigh of relief escaping her parted lips when a even better idea occurs to her.

A coy smile lights her lips slyly, and she leans slightly over the edge of their bed, chewing her lip as she contemplates her idea.

"Marcos. Maaaaarccooooss." He barely stirs at the annoying use of his name, committed to his purpose with the crib and Lorna huffs almost exasperatedly.

It seemed like she should go to the next step of getting his attention.

Marcos grunts lowly as he finally twists the first joint of the stubborn crib in place when a pair of dark jeans hits him full in the face, smelling way too much like Lorna for him not to lift his face and look at her.

She's entirely too smug that's she's getting his attention as she lazily lounges half on the bed and half off the bed—and Marcos swallows visibly as his eyes land on her bare legs.

"I've got a better idea for bed rest and cribs." She croons, and Marcos chews on his bottom lip as she lies on their bed, dressed in his oversized shirt with no pants on and leaving little to imagination.

Tempting.

Very _very_ tempting.

It's a torture as he turns his eyes fixatedly from her stunning visage back to the half completed crib, and he hears her huff of exasperation and annoyance.

"Let's just go to bed, Marcos." She flops on his back, her weight pressing deliciously against his back, and her scent almost consuming him as he struggles to fix the next piece of their baby crib.

"I've got to finish this, Lorna."

He can't believe this, but Lorna whines at that sentence.

Actually _whines._

"But that's no fun."

"Oh yeah? What's fun then?"

"Bed rest. With you. Naked." Her answers are so direct that it makes his mouth dry as his mind wanders to the wild passionate night they had before ( _John couldn't look at his face in the morning until he came back with the crib, because that was the sixth time they've asked for a new bed post–blame it on pregnancy hormones, and Sonia was trying to hard not to laugh_ ) —and he desperately shakes his head, trying to clear his mind and focus.

"I'm trying to concentrate here, Lorna." She huffs at him in a typical Lorna way that has his lips curving affectionately.

"Well then, stop trying and come join me. I've just taken off your shirt." Marcos fights back a groan.

It was obvious Lorna was trying to distract him from whatever he was doing—to pretty much a great success.

He was already contemplating the pros and cons of not being in bed with Lorna at the moment and—

He stiffens as he feels her lips trail down his jawline to his collarbone.

 _Ah, fuck this._ He thinks as he throws aside the wooden piece of the half finished crib to grab and press her body to his chest. _The crib can wait._

He feels her squeals of laughter that collapse into breathy moans as they collapse onto the bed, and he plans on making such a memorable night for her bed rest that she won't be able to walk or even try getting out of bed to disturb him for the next few days, and if by any luck, make her start permanently liking bed rest for the rest of her pregnant days.

 _ **Reviews and Comments are GOLD.**_


	17. Effects of Mutation on Pregnant Women

_**The Side Effects of A Mutation On Pregnant Women**_

 _ **Prompt: irenehogan-blog Lorna starts getting the feelings of whoever is closest to her due to Aurora's mutation.**_

 _ **Note to all readers: Subtle ThunderBlink here and Aurora's empathy pretty much works like telepathy (Because she eventually will be able to track mentally any individual, so technically her mind areas or physic inclinations would be slightly more developed but not as developed as a pure psychic), but instead of purely the mind, it's emotions, but Lorna can feel her pondering things. I don't know how else to put it but—lets just say imagination and fiction does help pull this through. Technically I prefer my idea for how powers work to have at least some backing and less imagination, but well it can't hurt, and two I'll just put this under those not so well done prompts.**_

It starts with an odd tickling in her chest when she gets close to John, Sonia and Clarisse.

At first she puts it off as something wrong with hormones–it really wasn't the first time in her pregnancy that she's known to suddenly collapse in ridiculous tears that would make her hide for days, so she guesses that that tickling in her chest is merely contributed to her raging hormones and emotions from her pregnancy.

But it starts getting stronger as the days pass, and Lorna is struck in the face by the sudden intense feeling of the green eyed monster rearing in her chest as she steps between Sonia and John, who was talking to Clarisse with a wide grin on his face.

Wait.

What?

 _What?_

The surge of jealousy rose and gets stronger by the minute as John leant close to Clarisse, pulling her in for a hug. Lorna's eyes whipped towards Sonia's, and she watches all the visible signs of jealousy that rises in her best friend's face as her ex-boyfriend gets close to his new flame.

 _Oh._

Her hand drops to her rounded stomach as a flutter of confusion fills her chest, and a small feeling of the jealousy she was feeling from her friends being contemplated and pondered quietly by another small being she was carrying.

"Hi Kid." She murmurs lowly.

There's a flutter of excitement in her chest that doesn't belong to her emotions at all, before a pure surge of adoration sends tears welling in her eyes and her feet scurrying away in the direction of Marcos and her vault room that they share. Her fingers rub her belly lightly as the surge of excitement, love and adoration ends purely to one of boredom, and she chuckles as her baby smashes her leg in protest against her belly. She has a feeling that Aurora wants her to stand between people, because their emotions reach her little girl through her as a medium.

"No, Momma's not feeling too good today." The boredom and kicking immediately recedes before being replaced by alarm. "No no, you aren't hurting me." Lorna soothes her daughter as she feels the short bursts of panic in her chest that belong to her daughter. "I'm just tired." She yawns.

Her daughter doesn't respond in the form of her extremely well developed emotions or understanding, but Lorna feels the pull of jealousy rising in her chest as her daughter tries drawing that emotion out in her to feel and contemplate this new emotion she's never seen before.

"That's jealousy."

Confusion floods her immediately, and Lorna chuckles.

"Well, it's the feeling Mommy gets when I see other women get close to your handsome daddy."

The surge of understanding is immediate, before it's replaced entirely by disgruntledness and possessiveness as her daughter considers emotionally the fact that her father is actually pretty popular with other people and not just belonging solely to her mother.

"Yeah, I don't like it too." She rubs her belly. "Especially when Carmen is near him." She's surprised by the utter disgust and negative emotion that pours out from her daughter at the mention of Carmen's name. "Yep. You're definitely my kid." She pats her stomach happily.

"Talking to Aurora again?" Her daughter kicks excitedly as Marcos' voice floats into her ears, and a excited surge sends all the hairs in her body rising on her skin.

"Yep. She's been excited all day, and I've been feeling other people's emotions that's she's been pulling into me." Marocs sits by her, placing a hand on her forehead worriedly before pressing a kiss to her belly. He's worried for the excessive emotional overload that their daughter regularly gives Lorna—it literally takes a toll on her, because her temperament has started to become entirely unpredictable because of that.

One moment she could be entirely depressed because she walked next to someone who was mourning or depressed, and the other, excited and overly happy if she walked next to someone who was perky, because Aurora can't control her powers yet and Lorna is the only link through which the empathic imprints and emotions of everyone else reaches her.

It was also one of the reasons why Lorna avoided going out to crowds as she passed her seventh month of pregnancy. The emotions that seeped into her as she walked or simply touched people increased as their daughter grew more and more aware of her surroundings as she developed.

And while they were glad they knew of Aurora's mutation early on before hand, there was the worry of it taking a toll on Lorna, who both Marcos and Lorna herself knew at times was emotionally fragile. So they tried talking to their little baby about that.

It was frustrating at first, because Aurora didn't understand words in the early months of the pregnancy—she only understood emotions but could not put words to them. It was Lorna's idea to convey their meaning through the emotions that she felt, since Aurora and her were connected so intimately. It had succeeded, to a great degree, but as time progressed, and Aurora got more ready to exit into the world, her curiousity would exceed her consideration for Lorna, and that's when Marcos would keep a close watch over Lorna, because she tended to revert to her depressed and emotionally unstable state when Aurora pulled to much emotional information into her.

"Hey. You good?" He smooths a hand down her aching back. Lorna hums lightly, shrugging almost non-committally.

"Depends. She's pretty bored." She twines her hands in his shirt. "Kinda makes me feel like I have to do something and not just stay in bed." Marcos chuckles.

"Are you sure that's not just you?" He raises two eyebrows at her, coughing as she slaps and winds his chest. "Okay. Ow. So not." He presses a kiss to her forehead as she smiles shyly, and both of them chuckle simultaneously as the baby kicks their intwined hands, hard, once. Then twice, as though demanding attention.

"We love you too, peanut." Marcos teases, and Lorna nearly cries with the overwhelming amount of love and adoration that surges through her chest at her daughter's response to his words.

"Lorna?" Her boyfriend's alarmed voice permeates her thoughts. "Why are you crying? Oh my God. Are you okay? Did she just do something—"

Her daughter withdraws the pure emotion of love slightly, and she feels a slow apologetic emotion seep into her chest.

"N-no, nooo, I just—" Lorna wails. She hides her face behind her hands as Marcos chuckles.

"Hormones huh?"

"Yes!" She's never agreed more vehemently to his words as she rubs her belly. "Hormones! That's all." She knows that Marcos knows she's bluffing, but he doesn't expose her, instead slinging his arm around to cuddle her comfortingly.

"It's okay."

Lorna takes a shuddering breath as her boyfriend and her daughter tries to comfort her, one physically and the other with her clumsy hold on empathy.

Her eyes well again with tears, and decides that she loves her daughter's mutation and link to her, despite all it's cons and consequences, because she's never felt so loved.


	18. Lorna Asks for a Carseat

_**Lorna Asks for a Carseat**_

 _ **Prompt: irenehogan-blog asks for a car seat Marcos is confused as to why she wants one but still removes an actual seat from the inside of a car. Lorna laughs and tells him that she wanted a baby car seat.**_

"Hey babe? Do you want me to get anything for you?" Marcos peeks round the corner of the vault room, a twitch of a smile on his face as he watches Lorna rummage through a box of things, her progress slightly impeded by her burgeoning belly.

"Uh yep! Hang on a minute.." Marcos shakes his head slightly, chuckling as he hears a yelp and a loud crash.

"Do you need help? I could always—"

"No need!"

"Well, if you say so babe." He grins at her sprawled figure and huffy face. "Well? What did you need me to get for you?" Lorna groans slightly, picking herself off the floor with a slight huff of breath.

"A car seat."

"Huh?" Lorna glared at Marcos irritably.

"I said a car seat Marcos, didn't you hear me?"

"Right. Right. Uh, but what for?"

"I thought you knew!" Marcos blinks as her mood snaps from happy to grumpy all at the same time.

"Yes! Uh, it just slipped my mind for a moment. I'll be back with the car seat, babe. Don't worry." He rubs his hands across her back, sighing internally as she deflates visibly. Marcos grins as she reaches up to peck him on the lips gently, before he turns to walk out of the room.

He was so gonna have to take a wild guess and hope that whatever car seat he'd was gonna get would be the exact one she'd like to have.

….

Lorna has half the mind to get a large clear sign that says pregnant woman coming through and sticking it to almost every wall of the headquarters, because no one pays her mind even though she's legitimately pregnant, and she has to squeeze her whale like body across other bodies to simply get to where she wanted to be.

It wasn't a very nice escapade—so when Caitlin brings her a cup of iced water she shoots the nurse mom a grateful glance, before collapsing onto the couch with a groan.

"You were supposed to update me news on the latest rescue." She accuses, her eyes trained on Sage, who grins amusedly at her friend, almost laughing as Lorna props up her swollen feet and rubs her back. "That was the compromise for me not going out and helping!"

"Yeah sure. Like there wouldn't be a 100% guarantee that you'd impede them more than help them in this state of yours."

"Temporary state. Temporary, you hear me?" Sage chuckles at Lorna's irritability.

"Well, this wouldn't have happened if you and Marcos didn't aim to rob us of our sleep with explicit noises and bright lights every night." Lorna growls into the fluffy pillow that Caitlin passes her with a smile.

"Oh hush. And it's not like you still get sleep nowadays anyways." Her cheeks flush as she recalls her waking of Marcos in the middle of the night—all because her hormones had decided to rage on her in a form of a wet dream and she was terribly hot and bothered.

"I actually have half the mind to suggest that you and Marcos live separately from our headquarters, you know."

"You wouldn't." Lorna huffs.

"Believe me, I would." Sage grins at her friend as she crosses her arms. "We've got young ears here, and I'm sure John would appreciate the less noise to his sensitive ears."

"I am not _loud._ "

"I didn't say you were." Sage grinned like a Cheshire cat. "You said so yourself."

"Oh shut it!" Lorna decides that she can't argue out of the arguement with Sage, and resorts to throw the pillow she's throwing at Sage's face.

"Ooh. Resorting to violence when you can't argue your way out. Very matured, Lorna Dane." Lorna has half a mind to give Sage the middle finger, but abandons the idea completely as Caitlin keeps an eye on her watchfully, her son and daughter standing barely a few metres behind her back.

Right.

Young ears.

She turns to Sage importantly, then mouths the words with absolute silence.

 _Fuck you._

Her friend bursts into laughter at her smug face, before turning back to the monitors and handing her a map.

"It's been all smooth so far, Lorna. If there were any hiccups,. I would have told you." Her friend touches her shoulder reassuringly. "I'm more worried that you should rest."

"I've rested enough already." Lorna almost whines. "I've been in bed all day, binge watching all four seasons of Phineas and Ferb, sang through every single theme song they had, then watched Sponge Bob SquarePants, sang it's theme song and still feel like I can do so much better out of bed."

"Phineas and Ferb? SpongeBob?" Sage doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at her friend. "You do know that's elementary and preschool kind of stuff."

"Well I was doing it all for the sake of the little peanut here." Lorna grins mischeviously as Aurora gives a kick to her stomach. "See? She agrees. She just kicked me."

"Right." Sage really can't deal with a kiddish Lorna at the moment, because it makes her want to laugh too hard at the stark difference of this goofball and the hard edgy Lorna they've always seen in fights and rescue missions. Not that they never knew that Lorna was that kiddish—she kinda only opened that side up to Sonya and Sage for girl nights, where they took the rare moments to chew on chips and popcorn, crying over The Notebook as it played, and only apparently shared her extensive kid intentions with Marcos, who's never ending tolerance for the green haired mutant amazed Sage sometimes.

But that was simply true love at work, Sage guessed, as she often watched Marcos and Lorna interact, their fleeting smiles of understanding and glances at each other betraying their deeper connection with each other.

"I'm back!" There's a clatter of stuff all over the floor, and Sage shakes her head as Lorna squeals, fumbling to get up as Marcos steps through the door.

"Did you bring me what I asked for?"

"Uh…yep."

Silence ensues as all of them stare at the very obvious and empty carseat that Marcos plants before Lorna.

"Okay." Marcos is already backing away from the storm that they can predict would rise and come out of Lorna. "What the fuck is this?"

"Language!" Caitlin's chiding voice echoes somewhere behind them, but Lorna simply stares at Marcos incredulously.

"You wanted a car seat!" He exclaimed sheepishly. "Then—"

"You didn't understand what she wanted." Clarisse grinned, amusement clear on her face. "Well done, Flashlight."

"Don't call me _Flashlight_ —but, yeah." Marcos scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Sorry?"

All of them glance tentatively at a still Lorna.

"Uh..should I run?" Marcos looks helplessly at Sage.

"It's still 50/50." Sage shrugged, grinning slightly. "It's your fault anyway, so it's none of my business if you get slaughtered."

"That's…not _fair_!"

"Nothing is fair in love and war." Sage sang, before turning back to her monitors.

Marcos growled under his breath,when a sudden snort of laughter came from Lorna's direction.

He turned around swiftly.

"You…got a car seat for me because you didn't know what kind of car seat I wanted?" Lorna was dissolving into helpless laughter, her belly aching from the continuous laughs that streamed front her mouth. "Oh– _crap_. Side stitch." Marcos grinned as she crunched to her side with a groan, her hand on the belly as she wiped the tears of laughter from her face. "Man! I haven't laughed this hard since—"

"White Chicks." Sonya supplied from the corner, doodling on a piece of paper with a small grin on her face.

"Yep that." Lorna had a ear splitting grin that spread from ear to ear as she shook her head at her boyfriend. "I didn't ask for a normal car seat, Marcos." She sniffled slightly, wiping the remaining tears from her eyes. "There's no way a baby's gonna be able to sit in that." All of them dissolve into laughter yet again at Marcos' stupified face.

"But you didn't say!"

"I thought you knew!" Lorna huffed back at him.

"Well, I'm not that telepathic." A slow grin spread across his face as he shrugged.

"Where did you get that car seat anyway?!"

"I uh…dismantled it from one of our cars." Marcos remained sheepish. "I'll…go change it now." He scurries forward quickly, grabbing the car seat with his flushed cheeks before hurrying out of the room.

"I'm never gonna let him live that down." Lorna announced. "A normal car seat for a baby!"

"Well, he did say you weren't specific." John chuckled.

"That's beside the point." Lorna huffed at her friend. "Point is, I've got one more thing to tease him about endlessly."

"It'll grow old quickly." Sage grinned at her friend, shaking her head as Lorna rubbed her hands together in glee.

"I'll take whatever I've got!" She stretches like a huge cat and yawns. "I'm tired."

"Go to sleep, you pregnant lazy thing." Sonya called from a corner, dodging Lorna's throw pillow with a loud laugh.

"I'll tell Marcos you said that!" Lorna's voice echoes down the long corridor of their headquarters. "No one insults me and our little bean and gets away with it!" The three friends share a knowing glance and shake their heads, dissolving into quiet but oddly happy laughter.

 _ **Reviews are lovingly appreciated :3**_


	19. Of All Kisses and Crushes

_**Of All Kisses and Crushes**_

 _ **Prompt: irenehogan-blog scenarios of what could have happened after their kiss in episode 3. The break apart and get all shy and awkward or they move it inside and get it on. +John teases Lorna about her crush on Marcos.**_

It's a heady rush of adrenaline and excitement that tingles through Lorna's veins as she breaks apart from Marcos' lips, her hazel eyes slightly glazed and surprised as she clutches his arm to steady herself.

"Okay." She says quietly to herself. "Okay. _Wow_." A short laugh escapes Marcos' lips opposite her, high pitched and nervous. "That was not what I expected." She glanced at his tense stance slightly before letting her lips gently slide into a wide smile. "Not that it wasn't good." Her cheeks are tinted red—and she can't remember when was the last time she'd actually blushed like that, perhaps in a far distant memory of a more stable life and high school boyfriends.

"Look I, I uhm—"

"Don't you dare apologise." Marcos stops short as she silences him with a glare and a finger to the lips. "I told you I don't mind." Her eyes softened slightly. "And it isn't a crime to kiss someone as pretty as me, you know." He chuckles at her audacity.

"It was a heat in a moment thing, but…it was great." He ended lamely, and Lorna chuckles lightly at his embarrassment.

Their fingers tangled with each other comfortably, his thumb rubbing the back of her hand gently, and Lorna's utterly surprised to find she doesn't detest his touch.

At all.

In fact, she quite enjoys it.

She leans in hesitantly this time, both scared and anticipating, and their noses bump lightly into each other, and she chuckles, embarrassed.

"Sorry." The moment is shattered by their inexperience, and Marcos shakes his head, a crooked smile on his lips.

"Maybe we should go somewhere more private." Lorna glances down at the bright vibrant lights that twined around their hands, and blushes deeply before nodding. She was quite sure John wouldn't be that appreciative of the sudden disturbance to his good night's sleep.

"Or maybe we should take it slow." Her eyebrows raise as he fumbles.

"Hey, _you_ were the one that kissed me."

"Yeah, I did. But I don't want—don't want it to kinda end off as something like a one night stand." She thinks it's adorable that his cheeks flush as he tries to ask her as subtly ( _but failing miserably_ ) to be his girlfriend, and her hands fists into his shirt as she smiles coyly at him, before pressing a full kiss to his lips and leaving him dazed in the parking lot, flouncing off back towards their headquarters.

She does an internal squeal of excitement as he calls after her not five minutes later.

"Hey! So is that a yes or a no?" She pivots on her foot, her hands behind her back as she smiles cheekily at him.

"I'm free tomorrow evening." She watches as understanding Dawns on his eyes and he smiles sheepishly at her, scratching his head slightly. "I'll kick you if you aren't there at seven sharp!" She calls, feeling on cloud nine as she practically dances into the headquarters.

"So….Flashlight boy and you are hooking up? I guess the googly eyes you were making secretly at him worked." She shrieks as John appears out of nowhere and scares the crap out of her ( _it's one of his less desirable mutant abilities—to move around like a ninja despite being built like a hulk)_. He paused for a moment, before a grin spreads across his face. "You're so cute when you are crushing hard on someone and not all imposing and badass, you know."

"Ew, go flatter Sonya instead." She flaps her hands playfully in his face. "But I do not have a crush on Marcos."

"Oh so it's a first name basis now? I guess it's inevitable, since he's meeting you at seven sharp in the evening tomorrow, and you guys just kissed." Lorna had half the mind to actually throw him by the metal buckles on his belt all across the room, but grins as she remembers the leverage she holds over him. John was crushing hard on her best friend himself—Sonya, but the poor man, despite all his muscle and brawn, can't seem to work up the courage to even ask her out for a small date.

"If you're gonna tease me endlessly, I'm telling Sonya about your crush on her!" She sing-songs. What she doesn't tell John is that Sonya likes him too— because she figures she might as well get the most out of these two secrets ( _Sonya's been at her Beck and call almost every day because she doesn't want John to know her crush on him, and John's been keeping his line very very well, because he doesn't want Sonya to know he likes her too. All in all, it's complicated. For them, but beneficial for her._ )

"You _wouldn't."_

"Oh believe me, I so would." She cups her hands slightly. "Oh Sonnyyyyaaaa–" John yelps, rushing to clasp a hand over Lorna's mouth.

"Fine! I won't say a word or tease you about your crush with Marcos!" She holds up a finger, raising an eyebrow. "I swear I won't even mention it." His shoulders sag.

"Good boy." She Pats his muscular arms, because it would be awkward for her to stand on her toes and Pat his head when she's only 1.74 metres and he's a good 1.8.

"What am I, a dog?" He calls after her as she prances off gleefully.

"Maybe!" She teases him back, enjoying this new hold over John way too much. Sonya catches up to her halfway through the stairs, eyebrows raised.

"You woke me with that call from my sleep, Lorna." She's Moody from the lack of sleep while Lorna is all hyped from her encounter with Marcos. "Mind telling me why the hell are you blushing?" Lorna shrugs, leaning on the staircase bannister, her face propped in both of her hands as she looked down at her best friend with a wide smile on her face.

"I just got a date with Marcos."

Her best friend's eyes widen.

"You mean that _hot_ scruffy Diaz boy? I thought you didn't like him!" She surrenders as Lorna glares at her when she mentions that Marcos is hot—-because Lorna is just damn possessive over the people she likes and Marcos just so happens to be one of them.

"Well—" Lorna drawls, her shoulder shrugging offhandedly. "He kissed me _first,_ and he's quite handsome."

"So because he's _handsome_ that's why you've decided to date him?"

"Noooo, I ain't that shallow." Lorna huffs. "We both can do really cool stuff with our powers."

"Tell me!" Lorna shrinks back slightly, turning her face half away. She wants to keep their Aurora Borealis effect much of a secret rather than share it—it felt like it was something special that they both shared with each other only, and there was no way that Lorna wanted Sonya to know about this, despite them being good friends.

"Oh, it's nothing." She waves her friend off quickly. "I'm gonna go to bed."

"Yeah, keep pretending, Lorna Dane! I'll find out about this thing you're talking about sooner or later!" Dreamer huffs, and smiles shyly as John appears on the steps behind her. "Oh! Hi Johnny." Lorna grins as the two stare at each other awkwardly, a blush on their faces before she retreats to her room, a song on her lips and a skip in her step.

Life was good.

Life was so very good.

 _ **I know that a lot of people don't like Thunderbird and Dreamer together and to be honest, I don't either. But at this point Clarisse hasn't appeared and we all know that Well, John and Sonya were old news since they dated for almost a year or so I think.**_


	20. Relationships and Problems

_**Relationships and Problems**_

 _ **Prompt: irenehogan-blog The awkward conversation when Lorna asks what their relationship is and Marcos asks her if she wants to be his girlfriend. Lorna teases him and says no.**_

 _ **Warning: Angst ahead.**_

"Can I ask you something?" They're laying in the bed that they seem to frequently share, in the exact same room—its Marcos' room really, but half of Lorna's items are in his room and not in hers, there's her frequently used moisturizer on the dresser and makeup on the vanity, the smell of her oft used perfume hanging in the air, her panties and bra drying in the toilet from their afternoon romp in the shower and a whole stack of clothes jumbled in-between his own in the cupboard.

Lorna hums, tracing circles on his bare chest.

"You do know that those questions don't often end well, don't you?" Marcos raised an eyebrow at her, her head pillowed against his shoulder, their legs tangled together, bodies sweaty from their previous round of sex.

"Mhm." He mumbles, his nose gently grazing her throat. "Still. What are we?"

"What do you mean by what are we?" His arms are suddenly empty as Lorna sits up abruptly, her eyebrows creasing together.

Marcos stares at her sudden response.

"Well, as in, are we—"

"Putting a label on whatever this thing that we have is?" Lorna's muscles are bunched together, tense and wary, and Marcos simply stares openly at her.

"Yeah. I mean, we're practically living with each other." He chuckles. "Half of your things are in my bathroom and—"

"Marcos. We're just fucking. You know, friends with benefits?" His face freezes up abruptly, and Lorna fidgets, her chest seizing at his suddenly blank face. "I mean, we don't have to put a label on this, right?" She manages a nervous laugh. "This is just for fun."

She nearly flinches as he stays silent, his eyes searching her own hazel ones for something, before they fade away, because she can't look at him in the eyes, and she's looking everywhere but his liquid brown irises.

"Right." Something in her chest stutters as he waves off his own question, turning to pull on his boxers, then his pants.

"Wait, where are you going?" Her fingers reach for his arm, and she stares as he pulls his own hand out of her grip. "Are you really being serious right now? Why are you even—"

"I was just going to settle something I forgot." He interrupts her plainly. "You go sleep first. " Lorna can't shake the feeling that she's done something very wrong—because as he turns his back, it doesn't feel like he's coming back, it's more like a goodbye that she doesn't want to acknowledge at all.

"Wait, Marcos!" She's left staring at his back as he doesn't even turn back to listen to her calls, and the bed stays empty for the rest of the night, cold and suddenly unbelievably hard.

And so she stays up the rest of the night simply waiting for him to come back in after all the lights go out.

He doesn't.

And her night passes almost without any sleep.

….

Then slowly, he starts avoiding her during the day, and then came the slowly disappearing items from the bedroom they used to share.

Lorna would find herself looking for another toothbrush on the sink where his usually was but not finding it, or trying to find out of the cupboard her favourite flannel shirt of his that she likes to wear but not finding it anywhere.

It's like he's slowly retreating out of her life–and she's too stubborn to admit that it actually hurts.

They've been together for a year, without any labels, just falling into bed with each other, staying overnight, and sharing glances and smiles at lunch, holding hands as they planned their next mission—and suddenly there's nothing anymore. Marcos stands at the far end of the table when they talk, his place no longer at her side but at John's, and she hears that he's crashing in John's room, on the small crumpy sofa that can't be comfortable for him. She notices, because he cracks his neck more often than he should, and stretches as though to loosen out his body when they see each other in the mornings.

And there's this empty hole in Lorna's chest that gapes and threatens to swallow her whole, like a shark that has opened it's maw to devour it's latest victim, and she can't help but spiral into the familiar darkness of her mind as she curls up alone in their bed–no, now her bed at night.

It takes a toll on her, the dark circles beneath her eyes, her gradually uncontrollable lashing out both during missions and off missions, and Lorna can feel John and Sonya's concerned gazes on both of them respectively.

But she's not talking to him first, because it just isn't cool for her to seem weak and break first.

If anything, Lorna believes it should be him that comes to seek her out first, instead of the other way round, and this toils on for a month, then the next, until Sonya calls her out on her bullshit.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" She'd been a royal bitch to Marcos this afternoon, snapping at him rudely at the meeting, and shooting down every suggestion he's made, the loneliness and hurt morphing into anger that's directed at him—because he isn't supposed to leave her all alone, and she stares out of the window with blank eyes and folded arms, Sonya glaring at her from the corner next to her.

"Nothing's wrong with me."

"Oh yeah? Then tell me, since when have you progressed from a girl to a grade A bitch? Especially with Marcos?"

"That's none of your business."

"Did he do something wrong? Because if he did, I'm so gonna tell Johnny and he's so gonna get the biggest trashing of his life."

"He didn't do anything wrong." It's almost instinctive to defend him, because hell yeah, Lorna knows deep down that the one in the wrong isn't Marcos, but her, and Sonya narrows her eyes slightly, reading her body language.

"Don't tell me you were the one that did something wrong." She immediately shies and flinches at the statement, a reflexive action that she can't seem to help, because as unfortunate it is, it is the brutal truth. "Oh my God. You did do something wrong!" Lorna doesn't know if she's happy at her friend's sudden exuberance as a problem solver ( _well, a relationship problem solver_ ). "So tell me! Maybe I can help."

"I…" Lorna stares a little helplessly at her best friend, quite at the loss of what to truly say. "Well, Marcos asked me a question one night after we, you know—"

"Oh, you mean right after you guys fucked each other?" Lorna hisses at that statement, pressing her finger to Sonya's lips. "Oh come on. Everyone here knows that you two are humping each other. As if the Northern Lights and loud impossible to block out moans don't tell us what you two have been doing in almost every part of your room."

She actually flushes at that, her cheeks heating up fondly in the memory of their more heated moments. It sends a pleasurable jolt to her stomach, and shot of desire shooting through her body.

"Hello? Hellooooo? Earth to Lorna Dane?" Sonya snaps her fingers in front of her. "So he asked you a question. Let me guess, it was the question to what you guys were to each other, wasn't it?"

Lorna's mouth drops.

"Are you psychic apart from being able to manipulate memories?"

"No, I just know that there's nothing else more that freaks you out like this when someone asks you to commit to a relationship. Your abandonment issues are a huge red light for that, you know." Sonya crosses her arms and tilts her head at her. "Anyone with the right mind can figure out that you're too scared to commit yourself solidly to a relationship. That's what chased him away, didn't it?"

"I…" Lorna mumbles weakly. "I didn't mean it like that! And he shouldn't have left—I mean, I told him that we were doing just fine without a label, and so why was it even necessary to put a label on–"

"Lorna Dane, that's because that man right there loves you. He loves you right from the bottom of his fucking heart that everyone can tell and see with their own bare eyes. Whatever your response was, it told him that those feelings, they're not reciprocated. That's why he's choosing to leave, before you break his heart even further." Sonya untucks herself from the wall. "You really fucked up big time this time, Lorna. Because it's not just he who likes you, you actually love him back too." She paused slightly. "You're just too scared to admit it." Sonya tilts her head slightly in Marcos' direction again. "Think about it, and do something about it before you regret."

She turns abruptly and storms off, leaving Lorna all alone.

…..

Lorna doesn't act upon Sonya's advice immediately, because she's an extremely stubborn person right from the top of her head to the tips of her toes and she hates being wrong.

But it's a torture watching Marcos smile and laugh with everyone else, especially with other girls, because there's this low possessive growl in her chest that screams _**mine**_ Everytime he directs that charming crooked grin in their direction, and Lorna has half the mind to actually storm into the bathroom where all the girls were one day, and give them a warning to back off her man—but the irony is, he really isn't hers inspite of what she feels, because she's all but pushed him away with her own two hands.

But Lorna's resolve finally snaps when she walks in on Marcos and the newest mutant girl they just rescued kissing and fondling each other in the corridor almost outside the Headquarters, where there's little to no privacy.

Heat surges to her cheeks and head, her nails digging hard into her palms as tears sting in her eyes, and she can't believe that he's doing this to her, because it fucking hurts like he's just punched a hole in her chest and flipped her inside out.

"What the fuck are you two doing here?" She plays it off cool as she crosses her arms and stares the girl down, leaning slightly on her right leg with her weight to give off an intimidating stance. The girl squeaks. Actually squeaks with terror, and Lorna's proud to know that if she's so scared just by a stance, that girl is definitely not Marcos' taste.

"Shoo. Run along." She's nasty to the point where even she herself knows it, but she can't help but stare as Marcos runs his fingers frustratedly through his hair.

"What the hell are you playing at, Lorna?" He mad at her, and suddenly she's mad at him or ignoring her and everything else that she pushes him to the wall and crushes her lips to his in a bruising kiss.

Her fingers curl in his shirt, pressing and seeking and she's hoping so hard that he kisses her back, and when he actually doesn't, her cheeks burn with the rejection as she pulls away, the sting in her eyes now apparent, her chest too tight for her to breathe as she drops her hand from his chest.

"Lorna." He tries to talk to her, but her ears are ringing, and she's suddenly so scared of what humiliating words he might say to her that she turns and flees, crashing like the freight train she is through the forest behind their headquarters.

Tears are running down her face, but Lorna doesn't care at the moment, because she knows that she's lost Marcos entirely with that stupid refusal to acknowledge that they could have been something more that night when he asked her the question. Hell, she hadn't even let him complete his question that night, and just like that all his affections for her are gone and there's no way that she can turn the clock back. She doesn't even heed his frantic calls for her through the forest, and she slides down the tree trunk to curl into herself, and let's those ugly tears wrench themselves out of her chest as she admits what's she's always been running from all along—the fact that she's madly and irrevocably in love with the one and only Marcos Diaz.

But she's realised it and stopped running from it far too late, because he just isn't there waiting for her anymore.

….

He finds her, shivering, wet and cold in the darkness of the forest, her hair plastered to her cheeks and rain in her hair, and he's also wet to the bone from chasing her, his eyebrows knitted together in a tight but worried frown as he stared down at her, sitting on the muddy floor of the forest.

"There you are." The sigh in his voice is almost relieved, and Lorna can't help but push herself up sluggishly. She can't really think with him around now, because looking at him makes her heart hurt way too much. "I've been looking for you _everywhere._ "

"You didn't need to." She croaks, her voice is terrible from crying, and her nose stuffy.

"Well, I wanted to." The answer he gives her nearly makes her laugh shakily through her tears, and she hesitates slightly before taking his offered hand. She wobbles as she stands on her feet, the crying having drained almost all the energy from her body when Marcos scoops her into his arms, bridal style, barely making any effort to heft her. A familiar warm glow lights his palms and glides over her clothing, and she's toasty and arm, tightening her fingers against his wet flannel shirt, her head pillowing on his shoulder as she leans into his embrace.

"You didn't have to run from me you know." He's quiet when he speaks, and warm enough to make her feel unbelievably secured. "What made you run?"

"I don't know." She is lost, but Marcos is anchoring her to reality, and the only thing she's aware about is how much she missed simply being in his arms, her nose pressed against his skin and him warming her gently with his powers. "I missed you." She blurts it entirely out of context, and feels the chuckle rumble lowly through his chest.

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I missed you too." His lips barely graze her forehead. He's still keeping his distance, attentive because he loves her, but guarded because she's hurt him, perhaps beyond repair.

"It does." She's suddenly too quiet in his arms, and Marcos has to frequently glance down at her to really make sure she's there. He can tell that she's nervous, because she's fidgeting, and playing with her fingers, which she normally doesn't do unless she's feeling emotionally insecured.

"Do you have something to say?" He decides to take the initiative this time, because she's like a kitten, too scared to make the first step, and he smiles when she relaxes slightly in his arms.

"Yeah. Yeah." She breathes out like a sigh of feathered relief. "Did I..did I hurt you?" The frown on his face was back immediately, but his footfalls still steady through the forest, the rain beating down on them but impossibly warn because of his hands and fingers.

"Hurt me on what?"

"Well…that night you asked me about being your girlfriend." Her voice is so tiny and insecure as she clutches onto him tightly, as though scared he's gonna let her go the moment they enroach that subject.

"Oh that." He's totally unbothered by the subject, and it makes her both angry and confused. "What about it?"

"Seriously?" He looks amusedly at her.

"Well I guessed from your reaction you didn't want anything more, and because I was..uhm..having more feelings for you, I decided to be more considerate and stay away and give myself some time to get over things. You know, by having other girlfriends and stuff—"

"But I want to." Her response is so tiny that Marcos didn't nearly catch it.

"Wait. What?"

"I said I want to." Lorna swallows slightly, her nerves getting the better if her till she takes a deep deep breath and let's everything that she's wanted to say to him out of her chest. "I want to be your girlfriend, to hold your hand, sleep next to you, have cuddles, and—" She flushes as he stares at her heatedly. "You don't know how jealous I was watching you with those girls." She glanced up at him openly, eyes wide. "I wanted to rip them off you and then stake my claim that you are mine."

A wide grins spreads across Marcos' cheeks till it almost hurts, and he drops Lorna gently on her two feet to the wet forest ground.

"Well, I'm not refuting your claim." He chuckles, his arms encircling her waist gently. "And I'd like it if you'd give me the permission to kiss you again." A smirk is plastered all over his face as he tugs her forward and she yelps, and suddenly Lorna's back is pressed hard against the trunk, and Marcos' lips is on hers, bruising and yet unforgiving. His lips and his tongue occupy her mouth, and Lorna can only gasp for air as he pulls away aggressively from her lips, her eyes hooded and mind dazed from the mind-blowing kiss.

"How's that for a kiss?" Lorna can't even think straight as he growls lowly into her right ear, fingers sneaking under her shirt to skirt her pale cold skin, leaving delicious trails of warmth dancing from his fingers to her, and pooling in her navel with a simmering pit of desire.

"Uh." She's at a blatant loss of words for once, and it's a nice change as she simply tugs his shirt urgently, her fingers slippery, cold and wet against the heated muscle of his front. Marcos hissed at the contact, and she smirks, regaining a bit of her bearings as she smashes her lips to his once again.

Their Aurora literally Sparks colourfully around them, before rising into the air, shattering the dark night sky with a beautiful array of colours. It's beautiful, twisted but yet so so perfect and so—them that Lorna pulls apart from Marcos' lips to soak in the moment and look at the vibrant colours in the night sky.

It's almost as though nature and phenomenon itself was agreeing to their relationship. Marcos buries his face in her neck and chuckles, and she sighs as she reclined against him, more completed than panicky at the sense of familiarity and love that swells in her chest that she _finally_ accepts, spilling over into her heart and eyes as she cups his face and resumes their heated kiss.

 _ **Well! I hope I carried over the angst just well enough :3 I apologise for updating on so belatedly. I actually write these prompts on my phone, and I have the tumblr app, so its so much easier to post there. But the point is, I don't really get constructive feedback or interations with my readers down there, and WHEW, I do need lots of prodding and pushing in certain directions with regards to my writing. So do feel free to shoot me a review down here! I would LOVE to read and look through it! So far I've got 3 reviews (THANK YOU FOR THOSE REVIEWS) I've read every one of them and replied to the best of my abilities :3**_

 _ **I really hope all my readers enjoy the prompts I've made and written thus far.**_


	21. Baby Steps

_**Baby Steps**_

 _ **Couple: Eclaris make up fic**_

Lorna was ignoring Marcos.

And perhaps, in truth, Marcos would say he actually did deserve some of her anger and fury.

But it was stretching both of them thin.

Marcos tended to observe Lorna more when they weren't talking—it gave him something to preoccupy himself as well as (kinda) a reprimand to himself for hurting her so badly.

He's always known she wasn't that stable with her emotions, Lorna confided to him that much, and with both the baby and his betrayal, Marcos knew he'd probably pushed her over the edge. She was snapping almost at everyone, out of control, and her trainings were getting more and more dangerous by the lesson. Not just for the children, but for herself too. And she tended to throw herself recklessly in missions without a care in the world, and even John—who understood that they weren't talking and had an argument and selflessly (as usual) allowed him to take time off the missions was gradually getting worried of how recklessly suicidal Lorna was about to get.

They'd have a plan to infiltrate and get away clean, and she'd throw them all for a huge loop by lunging into the open and slamming everyone by belt buckles and anything metal to the walls—-basically turning their safe proof plans into a puddle of well planned mush.

And to be honest, because of her recklessness, they've lost quite a few number of people they were supposed to rescue from the SS.

Marcos grunted slightly as he contemplated his options silently, his eyes never leaving Lorna's slim frame.

"Lorna." He expected the hostility, but not for the violent whip around of her hair and clenched hiss of her teeth.

"What?" His fingers found purchase in the nook or her arm, curving to grasp her elbow tightly, dragging her slightly with his strength away from the rest of the team.

"Can I speak to you?" She fought against him fervently, trying to pull out her arm from his prying fingers.

"I have nothing to speak to you about!" She hissed back through her teeth.

"Well, I have something I wanna talk with you about."

"Well too bad for you then, since I have no inclination of ever listening–"

"Look, I know you're mad—" Marcos said in a placating tone.

"Mad?" She interrupted him. "Mad? Are you being serious right now? I'm not mad, I'm fucking furious, Diaz."

Okay. She was calling him by his last name. Not a good sign. He holds his hands up in surrender.

"Okay. I shouldn't have gone back to the cartel, and you know damn well I'm sorry for that—"

"You think I'm angry because you went back to the cartel?" His girlfriend's bright hazel green eyes narrowed dangerously and her fingers poke almost painfully into his chest. "Because if that's what you think it is, oh you're so wrong there, Marcos. I'm not mad that you went back to the cartel, I'm furious that you—"

"That I didn't tell you the truth." Marcos is quiet as he responds, looking down as a flurry of emotions crosses Lorna's face. She was never one to hide her feelings well, he knew that much, and Marcos took her hands hesitantly into his. "I fucked up about that. I'm sorry. But whatever this is between us, we can't let it get between our missions." He's glad that John and Sonya have given them privacy the moment their little fight and conversation started, because he'd be incredibly uncomfortable if John ever knew that he went back to the cartel for a job. Hell, John would probably punch him to next week for doing something like this to Lorna.

"We're supposed to be a team, Marcos. If we can't even get beyond the basics of being truthful to each other—its to means we aren't a team. I love you, that's why I understand why you had to do what you had to do, but…not telling me about Carmen," A wry but unapologetic smile crossed her lips. "You know how much I hate that bitch. No offense to your ex-girlfriend." Marcos chuckled lightly as his girlfriend hums. "As for the missions, I'll admit to being a tad too extreme recently. I'll tone it down just a bit." She gives him a slight tilt of the head. "You know, follow the plan."

"You do know that both of you have very similar qualities, right?" A hard pinch to his side told him he wasn't forgiven just yet.

"I don't appreciate being compared to that bitchy ass girl. I think I'm far better than her." Lorna raises her eyebrows slightly. "Or if you beg to differ—"

"Absolutely not." He silences her with a sudden kiss, pleased when a flustered look appears, ebbing away the anger that was lining her face.

"I'm still angry, you know." She murmurs quietly as she fists her hands in her shirt. "It's gonna take some time for you to get back my trust. Trust isn't easily earned." He's solemn as he listens, and she appreciates his silence and sincerity, a soft smile crossing her lips wryly.

"I guess that means I'm back to warming the bed for you, huh?" Marcos snorts in a lame attempt at a joke as she tangles her fingers with his, but still placing a slight distance between their bodies.

He shares a small smile with her as she nods curtly, allowing him back into their shared bed, and sighs.

Baby steps to forgiveness, it seems.


	22. The Mark of Their Souls

_**The Mark of Their Souls**_

 _ **Prompt: irenehogan-blog Marcos first sees Lorna's green hair and tells her she's beautiful.**_

 _ **Soulmate AU, where they all have words from birth and no one sees colours for the first time until they meet their soulmate and have a kiss, and certain phenomenons show up to mark the soulmates as soulmates—where the Aurora Borealis is Marcos and Lorna's soulmate phenomenon mark.**_

The world itself is a twisted place, with twisted Gods that love to make fun and torture mankind with their idea of love and comradeship.

Lorna only says that because she's one of the chosen few, enlightened with the extraordinary experience of what everyone now called—the Soulmate Marking.

You see, God apparently determines for these individuals who they're destined to be with from birth–and it's imprinted carefully and inked into their skin when they first come into earth as a newborn. It never removes itself, never fades, and stays with you until the end of time. Of course, this phenomenon only affected one percent of the entire population of people in the world, and Lorna felt that it was the biggest joke that was played on her life that someone as shattered and broken as her had a soul mate waiting perhaps, at the far end of the other side of the world, where they'd never meet.

They'd possibly have children of their own in the future, get married out of necessity to continue their lineage, and never cross paths with each other because the chances are just so few for them to meet. And they'd never have the chance to ever fall in love or have true love—because the soul mate mark ensures that all your love is for that other person that carries your mark on some part of their body intimately, so even if you did get married, you'd never be able to love the person back as equally as they do to you.

It's fucked up, and equally unfair.

Oh and did she forget to mention that the one percent of people with soulmate marks aren't able to see any colour? Their world is a stark black and white and no other colours, and growing up, Lorna had a tough time being popular in school despite her cool attitude and demeanor, because her outfits we're often wrongly colour coordinated, a tragic disaster for any girl in the fashion industry or on the desperate path to be the next cool thing amongst cool people.

So she'd learnt from the best lessons and stuck with black as her favourite colour and outfit. It was monochrome, and boring, but mostly it helped her get through at the very least—highschool.

"So…can I see your mark?" Lorna turns her eyes towards her best friend, that's squished in the same couch as her.

Sonya was in every way a normal human—well a normal mutant if you'd be more specific, because one, she could see colours and did not have a soulmark to restrict who she loved. And that was the exact reason why Lorna didn't understand why her best friend had to make her own life so problematic— by falling in love with another of their best friend's, the strong and muscular ( _well, technically she gets it. Because, well, John's built like a Hulk and that makes all kinds of girls fall for him_ ) John, who has a soul mark on his ring finger _(she'd laughed when he'd shown her his, because that claim was waaaaay too obvious, and he'd upped and told her that having her mark at her navel curving down to wrap around her waist was another way too obvious sign–she'd hit him so hard for that_ ), and is as conservative as fuck because he's reserving himself for his soulmate.

Not that she's has the same qualms as he does anyway. There's always a need to fuck, primal or not when the situation and stress calls for it. Lorna wasn't a virgin, and it isn't as though she's keeping her bed sheets clean and white for her soulmate—she figured if he was her soulmate, he'd have to accept her fully, virgin or not, flaws and all.

"We're outside, Sonya." Lorna grumbles lowly, beneath her breath, and her best friend rolls her eyes.

"In the headquarters, and people know better than to barge into our room without permission."

"Hey bitches, what'cha doing?" Lorna grins as Sage pops round the corner.

"Well…except for you, Sage." Sonya replies drily. "I was just about to ask Lorna to take off her shirt and show us—-"

"Ooh, a strip dance?" Lorna snorts as Sage picks up the bottle and chugs down some whisky. "I'd say this is some strong stuff."

"And that's why you don't drink it all at one shot!" Sonya hisses.

Lorna watched quietly as her friend sinks into their couch with a doozy smile on her face. Sage was one of her best friends, but also an exemplary example of why soulmate marks were bad news and not good news. She watches as Sage chugs down another gulp of whisky.

Sage _had_ a soulmate.

Note the word _had_.

He was British, handsome as hell, and human, but loved her the way she was, mutant or not, and so when the Sentinel Services had came for Sage, despite he being human, he'd taken a bullet for her trying to help her escape, and died in her arms, bleeding out the next morning, and her words, carved on her wrist, had branded itself painfully into her skin, before fading away to bumped scars that would never fade. The howl of desperation and pain that had torn itself from Sage's mouth as she felt her soulmate die was permanently imprinted into her mind. Lorna had seen first and what losing a soulmate did to someone, and she sure hell did not want that for her own self, especially when she'd lost enough people in her entire lifetime to make her heart hurt for the entirety of this lifetime and the next.

"No…I was just asking Lorna to show us her soulmark!"

"Oh." Sage made a face and shrugged. "Would have been better if it was a strip show, though, but that's beside the point." Lorna exhaled slightly as she lifted up her shirt, the dark words on her pale skin sliding into view.

"En-can-tah-doh?" Sonya read out the word syllable by syllable, squinting her eyes slightly at the curved letters and squished handwriting that decorated her skin.

Sage raised her eyebrows.

"Well, at the very least yours isn't a bad word. Believe me, my parents, before they found out I was a mutant, wasn't please with the fact that my wrist had big bold Ariel letters of Fuck on my wrist in caps." Lorna chuckled and shrugged.

"I may very well not meet whoever this person is in the future. Especially since we're being hunted down now." Sonya slid her arm comfortingly across her shoulders, and both girls started as they're interrupted by a loud snore, turning their heads to both chuckle at Sage's unsightly sleep posture.

"Well, I did tell her to not chug down alcohol since she's such an alcohol trash…" Sonya picked herself off the couch with a groan. "You'll be fine on your own, won't you?" Lorna grinned, smirking as she brought the wine bottle to her lips and gulping down a sip. "Yeah you will." Sonya snorted, before turning to exit the room, leaving Lorna to her loud but silent thoughts, her hand gently stroking the word on her stomach, both regretfully and wistfully.

"¡Hola Marcos! ¡The Boss te está buscando!" A tall dark and scruffy Columbian make turned at the call, dark circles beneath his eyes as he stared forward grimly and nodded, his eyes tearing themselves away from the mark that encircled around his wrist that he's had for all his life.

 _Tonight, Flashlight boy. Don't you dare miss it. We'll be right there for you._

The writing itself was beautiful, as he was sure was the owner of those words, for they looped and circled roundedly across his wrist, perfectly symmetrical and nicely printed, and for a moment he had absolute remorse for not learning his penmenship all that better, because his handwriting was beyond atrocious. He was sure he'd love it anyway, because she was his and made for him, and he shuddered slightly as Carmen snaked her arms around him, a bright smile on her lips as she pressed her face to his back, the pudgy male behind her the male that desired to see him immediately.

"You called?" He maintained a respectful distance, the discomfort clear in his bones at Carmen's overly close approximity.

"Ah yes! Marcos! The man!" The heavily accented English filled his ears and Marcos cringed at the wrong use of English words.

"I have a job for you. Tonight. It needs your hands." Marcos glanced down at his hands reluctantly, the disapproval written on his face. "Are you not willing to, Marcos?" The threat was barely veiled behind the pudgy male's words as he leant forward threateningly. "You know I see you como un hijo, my boy, Carmen is also dating you and I don't stop!" Marcos twitches uncomfortably at the overwhelming attention suddenly fixated on him.

"I wasn't planning to reject your job offer anyway." He's quiet but firm as he speaks, and he feels Carmen sigh next to him unhappily.

"You have to stop making Marcos a job offer, Mí Papa, Marcos is not happy—"

"Why not?! More money, more profit, better business, then he can take care of you better!" Marcos let's them talk about his life as thought they've already planned it out for him, because either way they're not gonna fulfill their plans of profiting off his powers and getting him attached to the cartel with a snap of the fingers by marrying Carmen—-he had a soulmate out there that he wasn't gonna give up on, and that meant something, so, he was gonna make use of their profit attempts and job tonight to make a breakout attempt.

Carmen would be heartbroken, in all honesty, but Marcos believed more that she was in love with the idea of him as who she believed him to be rather than him as Marcos himself.

Hopefully she wouldn't take it too badly that he'd upped and left them, since she truly believed that he was in love with her ( _which in all due respect could not be possible, since he saw no colour and felt nothing in his chest for her. Someone else held that._ )

But still, he had to play the part of a duitful boyfriend.

And so he leant in and pressed a hard kiss to her lips, too thick and masked with lipstick to feel perfect against his.

"I'll be going now, Carmen." His voice was low. He still had to coordinate much more things with the middle man that he'd managed to contact this afternoon by the name of John. Apparently, he was a big shot in that Mutant Underground thing that he'd sought out, so Marcos thought it'd be worth the shot to actually try out and see if he had the chance to restart anew with whatever this option John might just offer him.

….

"So, you're coming for me tonight?" His voice is low and harsh on the phone, tense because he's calling the male between his rounds, of which he'd be killed if Carmen's father ever found out.

"Well technically yes."

"What? What do you mean technically yes?" Marcos' voice is harsh and almost accusing in it's low tone.

"Well, it's not just gonna be me, Diaz. I may have powers and be super strong, but I ain't metal stopping Superman." Marcos had the decency to grin slightly at that. "So just expect just one more person. One more and no more."

"Yeah." Marcos mumbled. The less the others knew about his past with the cartel, the faster and cleaner he'd be able to restart his future amongst them. After all, nobody trusted a person from the cartel.

"We'll be there tonight Marcos." Something rustles on the other end of the phone, and John's voice is as reassuring and protective—he even feels as though he's absolutely gonna be safe because they're gonna be there and Marcos doesn't even know why until another voice floats through the line, low, raspy and utterly perfect in the exact same words that tingle on his wrist—-

"Tonight, Flashlight boy. Don't you dare miss it. We'll be there for you." The line drops off, and Marcos is left stunned by his soulmate's perfect and utterly perfect voice, his mind racing a mile by the minute, phone still plastered to his ear—and he slowly feels his mind wanders off into uncharted territory—

"Marcos!" He snapped back to attention by Carmen's voice ( _a very unwelcome addition, because he was just in the midst of imagining his unknown soulmate moaning beneath him with that absolutely hot, raspy and seductive voice._ ) "Papa says I'm coming with you tonight."

The look on his face shows almost all that he can feel in that split moment—he's so so fucked either way.

...

It's entirely by extreme luck and fortune that the three of them manage to make it out safely and into a far away cafeteria, with bad coffee and warn lighting. Marcos is still jittery from the experience, silently nervous while wearing his suit, because absconding and running from a cartel is something that no one really does, and those that did, don't often end up nicely alive.

His attention is half divided though, because his eyes keep skirting to the impeccably beautiful girl next to John. He's yet to even know her name, and yet Marcos is clear with the fact that she's definitely the one for him—he feels it deep in his bones, like a calling from the wild when she accidentally brushes his fingers against the back of his skin, sending his vision momentarily into a burst of vibrant colours, too fleeting for him to tell specifically what are the colours of her beautiful eyes and the hair John says she claims made her stand out from normal people who weren't mutants. She doesn't show any sign of knowing that he's her soul mate—but Marcos takes that in his stride, after all, he's yet to speak directly to her, hence she wouldn't have begun experiencing the momentary bursts of colour when they touched. They haven't kissed each other either, and hence colours weren't a permanent thing in either of their visions, so Marcos guessed there was really no way for her to tell it was him unless he opened his frozen mouth to speak—which, in him being spellbound by her, made it an intensely difficult feat to complete. His tongue tended to twist uncomfortably when she smirked at him, and his heart raced so much in his chest that Marcos found himself avoiding her eye contact as much as possible, lest his heart would leap right out of his chest and flip right to the ground.

He barely heard John introduce them, fixated on her lax attitude and blaise "I-don't-really-give-two-fucks" posture as she stirred her terrible coffee—magnetically, using her powers to turn the spoon like some Harry Potter Wizard ( _he'd have to ask if she was interested in that movie and book series, because..they kinda needed a point to boost off from_ ).

"This is Lorna, she's my partner on this thing. Lorna, Marcos."

He shifts, trying to be subtle but sure he was failing quite miserably at being so.

"Encantado." He hoped he made a good impression with his Spanish, and that she found men speaking their native language hot either way, because her eyes snapped up to his almost in surprise and she fidgeted, fingers running to her sleeves, before fleetingly dropping to her stomach almost protectively, fingers brushing the grey material she was wearing.

He wondered where his words were imprinted on her body, because hers were marked neatly like a bracelet on his wrist,warm and tingling in her presence. He fought the urge to suddenly grab her and press a kiss to her lips, instead letting her talk as she slyly posited that he could date other women apart from Carmen.

He almost laughed out loud, but saved it just in time, because his soulmate looked like someone you wouldn't want to mess with, instead offering her a gentle smile that made her cheeks tint with a delightful pinkish colour.

Perhaps there was something good out of all this persecution and running away after all.

...

It's dark out when they finally settle down at the safe place John and Lorna called The Headquarters. A rundown, scaffold filled rickety old place filled with dust but with rooms that could possibly be nice if effort was made. Marcos didn't mind. He'd actually been in worse places before, so when Lorna had offered him one of the more comfortable places in the Headquarters, he was pretty sure his eyes raised in utter surprise.

"You do know I've slept in worse places before right?" He's changed out of his suit to a more drab grey but comfortable shirt, and his cheeks feel hot as his soulmate's eyes trace his abdomen quite unbashedly.

Was she always so daring like this?

"Walk with me." She offers him a gentle smile, and he decides that she is always that daring—not that he didn't like it.

It's only a moment before they're outside again, surrounded entirely by chirping insects and the quiet balm of the forest night that does almost nothing to cool his hyped up nerves and senses. She's comfortable though. Marcos could tell through the spring in her step that contrasted with his drag, and the slight tilt of her head and body as she turned to smile at him lightly, sending butterflies fluttering through his chest and belly.

"Is it always this quiet out here?" He decides to start the conversation, because her happiness was overwhelming to his awkwardness that he was exuding from his body.

"You'll get used to it." The smirk she sends his way warms him from the tips of his fingers to his toes, and Marcos fights the urge to smile stupidly at her. Did she not know the thrall she held over him? It was quite difficult to concentrate with the…charm she was exuding and holding over him.

He grunts.

"Well, how did you guys get this place? It's huge." He forces his eyes away from her beautiful form to rake through the uninteresting building, hands awkwardly twisting with each other. If she ever noticed—Lorna didn't bother to say.

Marcos presumes that she answers his question with a whole load of facts that —he actually doesn't listen to, because he's too busy staring at her lips and face to be jerked out of his reverie and listen to the information coming from her mouth. She finishes her explanation, looking at him half amusedly and expectantly, eyes slightly guarded.

"Well, love what you've done with this place." He goes for the lame jokes in his arsenal, and she cracks a knowing grin and shakes her head, huffing out a soft laugh, the tension from his staring released from her stiff shoulders.

"So..ever wondered what we did in a past life to deserve this? Having a gene that forces us to live this way?" Marcos is very clear with his stand—he hates the part of himself that makes hiding a necessity instead of a random thing, but surprise flits across Lorna's face at his words. He knows instinctively that she comfortable with who she is and what she can do, because he feels it through the connection that they have, streaming through the close proximity and distance between their bodies. She's proud of being a mutant, and loves who she is. That feeling of pride and honor overwhelms him as he touches their empathic connection slightly, and she jerks feeling for the first time the touch of the soulmate she'd been hesitant to connect with.

Marcos withdraws sheepishly, raising a hand to his head, and her eyes catch hold of the words twined around his wrist.

"Can I see?" Her pale fingers latch and find purchase around his hands, and his words burn and tingle as she strokes them gently, his vision flaring with bright colours as her fingers graze the marks on his hands.

A twitch of a wry smile Graces her face.

"Well who knew yours would be the first phone call we've ever had." He laughs, taking the initiative to pull her a little closer.

She's surprised at the distance between them,her palms flat on his chest as he locks his hands around her waist, watching the pinkish red blush work it's way up her neck into her cheeks, before finally coming to her ears.

It's cute that she blushes, he decides there and then, and he's definitely gonna try to make that happen as many times as possible.

"You're giving me a shit eating grin." Lorna complains almost immediately, and he's suddenly taken over by the urge to kiss her lips.

"Can I?" He whispers, and her eyes widen instinctively at the question, understanding the implication he meant behind it even though he'd uttered nothing to give it away.

He watches as she swallows, and he's just as nervous as she is, with her hands surging to twine around his right hand—and they both stop, staring in surprise as their visions flare with colour—to see the brightly coloured lights that rise from their hands into the dark night sky.

"Uhm." He let's her scramble for footing emotionally as his eyes linger on their phenomenon mark—its a symbol of something that fully belongs and embodies the compatibility of both soulmates, and Marcos doesn't know what it is until she opens her mouth to gasp in wonder.

"What is it?" He asks lowly, eyes skimming over the blindingly beautiful colours.

"I..I think it's the Aurora Borealis. They're both too captivated by their phenomenon mark to turn to face each other. "It's when the Sun's solar energy hits the Earth's Magnetosphere." Her voice trails of silently as they both latch simultaneously onto the meaning of their phenomenon mark. He turns slightly, feeling her breath fan against his, eyes searching as she licked her lips. "They say it's the most beautiful thing on Earth."

His vision is bright with colours of blue yellow brown and black of the surrounding trees, earth and dark nights, but she's the most beautiful creature that he's ever seen in that moment his sight permanently floods with colours—and all he manages to capture from her visage is her stunning hazel eyes, pale skin—and suddenly he's crashing his lips to hers, swallowing her gasp of surprise as her fingers dig into his words on his wrist. It burns in a solid and sweet kind of way that only she can make so, and his fingers are reaching around her waist instinctively, palming and finding his mark on her. It's near her waist, he can feel that much despite it being hidden from view, because her skin is breaking out in goosebumps as his heated fingers skirt around her stomach. He presses lightly on the spot near her navel and she suddenly shudders, her breath rushing out in a sudden gasp of electrifying shock.

 _ **There.**_

He feels it as his mark sends a shock of it's own up his fingers as he grazes it just so slightly.

"You.." She pulls away from their all consuming kiss, eyes hooded and half open as she tries to regain her bearings.

"Told you we're made for each other." He mumbles, immediately missing her touch and lips as he looks down at her beautiful face. She huffs almost incredulously, roughly yanking him forward to this time—crash her lips to his almost painfully.

"You should stop talking." She mumbles back at him between kisses, and Marcos chuckles.

"I'm glad I found you." He pulls back, framing her face with his own hands as he watches a flurry of emotions and panic rush through her eyes and face. "I won't die on you." He promises, somehow knowing that her reluctance and panic stemmed not from her fear of a relationship but that she might just very well lose him suddenly in this tumultuous world. Lorna gasps soft cry, chest heaving with emotion, the fear blatant rising in her face as she clutches his shirt almost painfully and tearfully.

"I won't." He catches the tears that escape from the corners of her eyes as her emotion brims over in her and spills out. Marcos chuckles as she immediately buries her face in his shirt as he runs his hands over her back gently and comfortingly. She's embarrassed at that sudden show of emotion, and was fighting desperately against that particular embarrassment as she hid her face in his shirt. He contemplates on shushing her like a small child, then entirely abandons that idea as she pinches his arm hard as soon as that thought pops in his mind and Wells in his chest, and turns her slightly glaring eyes up at him.

"I just…can't lose anymore people in my life." She sniffles hard.

"So that's why you didn't want to find me?" He's half amused half aching in pain for the losses she's experienced and unintentionally sharing through their bond.

Lorna turns her head away from his scrutinizing stare immediately, and Marcos chuckles.

"Alright, beautiful. I'll stop with the teasing." He fingers her green hair slowly, playing and tangling his fingers teasingly in the strands of her hair.

"Really, beautiful?" Lorna chuckles at his choice of nickname. "I'd have to call a raincheck on that." Marcos hums delightedly, the scent of her skin sending thrills through his body.

"What? You are beautiful." He admires the way the light shatters on her green luminescent strands, and breathes out a feather gasp of wonder. "Did you know your hair is green?"

"What?" His words momentarily take away the attention she's had on his features and skin to look down in astonishment at her coloured hair. "Oh." Her eyes are half crossed between amusement and resignation as a wry smile crossed her lips. "So that's why people always looked at me funny and why they could always tell I was different."

"Oh, you think? You're stunning." Marcos grinned. "If they didn't know you were different and stunning before, then I'd say they have something wrong with their eyes and brain." Lorna laughs softly as he gathers up the soft strands to let them fall through her fingers gently.

But something else caught Marcos' eye.

"What's this?" He enquires, lifting the green strands off the place where her neck meets her collarbone to eye the dark reddish purple mark on her neck. His eyes follow it slowly as it trails down her collarbone, and suddenly he's struck with a strong sense of possessive jealousy as he realises that the bruises were actually—love bites.

From having sex.

His eyes snap to hers immediately, and she avoids his eyes almost guiltily.

A growl escaped Marcos' lips. He knows that she can't possibly be a virgin at her age, but knowing that another male had laid his hands on what was his struck him with an almost overwhelming sense of jealousy and fury. Lorna yelped as her back crashed into a tree, sending a momentary sharp pain shooting through her back. Marcos' pressed his nose to the skin of her neck and inhaled, snarling almost ferally as he detected a stray scent that wasn't hers that permeated her skin.

"Marcos!" Alarm flooded Lorna's voice as he pressed his lips right over the marks on her skin, biting, suckling and printing his own mark possessively over the bruise mark that had been left behind in her nightly escapade the day before. Lorna tried to push him away.

But one should note the word tried.

The moment his lips had latched to her skin, it was just mostly just her gasping incoherently as his lips sampled the skin of her neck, sending Sparks shooting through her body and skin as her brain nearly melted and reveled in the desire and possession he held over her.

Once the skin was neatly bruised by his own lips, aching and swollen, did Marcos lift his eyes to meet hers guiltily.

"I…" She reaches for him, slightly stunned as he turns abruptly away from her touch, his eyes stunned and horrified at the impulsive action he'd just done.

"Hey. It's okay!" She reaches for him, pulling him tightly against her as she cupped his face. "It's the bond. I get it." Marcos grudgingly turns, pressing his fingers regretfully to the spot where his lips were just moments ago.

"I'm such an ass." He said grudgingly, swiping slow circles comfortingly over her skin gently.

"Well. I thought it was pretty hot that you're so possessive." She leaned slightly towards him, a small smile flitting across her face as she grinned at Marcos, whose eyebrows rose almost to his hairline, before a breathless laughter escapes his lips.

"You're one unpredictable lady." Marcos curls his hand around the side of her face gently. "Most people would complain."

"Well..I'm not most people." He only beams at her comebacks, grinning as he presses his fingers against her navel where his word marks her and Lorna yelps, jumping as the electrifying tingle surges through her body from her soul mark.

"Ugh. And you're annoying." Both of them know she doesn't mean what she says, because it's only moments later that they cave, lips meeting softly in a kiss that sends their Aurora Borealis curling and shattering in beautiful lights all around them.

 _ **The Soulmate AU spin was something that popped into my head and I added to irenehogan-blog 's original list of prompts because— Emma mentioned before that Eclaris are Soulmates. So why not?**_

 _ **And Technically this was written way before the last episode where Marcos and Lorna met in the coffee shop. After it came out, I put a different spin on it to suit this story**_

 _ **Another thing, Lorna has Charmed for Spanish printed in Marcos' handwriting on her belly curving down to her hip. XD The thought came to me when Marcos first met Lorna in the last episode and nodded his head, saying Encantando.**_

 _ **Reviews are LIFE.**_


	23. When ThunderBlink Does Nannying

**_When ThunderBlink Does Nannying_**

 ** _Couple: ThunderBlink_**

Clarisse is watching the mutant teen training going on with a twitch in her eyes and a baby in her lap. She sighs stiffly as Lorna hurls a hammer in one of the teens' directions, turning her eyes to the gurgling baby on her lap.

"You're mommy's pretty badass, you know." She watches as Aurora paws her small foot, and proceeds to stuff it into her mouth, then giggling as she topples over in Clarisse's lap, baby drool falling from the side of her open mouth as she teethed on her foot.

"Mamamamamamam." The baby cooes as she noms on her foot.

"I'm not your mommy, kid."

"Mamamam!" Clarisse gives up entirely, sighing as she grabs Aurora's foot and pulls it out of her mouth.

"That's dirty." The baby scrunches her chubby cheeks, and Clarisse panicks. "Oh no no no, don't cry. Please don't cry—" Aurora stubbornly flails, then opens her mouth to wail. "Look look here's the pacifer! Chew on that!" She stuffs the pacifier into Aurora's mouth just in time, and heaves a relief as the tears dissolve to happy murmurs.

"You're doing a pretty good job here." She's still mad at John for not telling her about what that Dreamer lady did.

"I guess I'm good with dogs and babies." She gives him a clipped reply, and then stands to turn away with Aurora gingerly carried in her arms.

"Yeah, uh… about that…"

"You've already said you're sorry. Not your fault I'm not taking it." She's never that glad for a hungry baby in her arms when Aurora starts clutching and pawing at her, and she strides quickly towards Caitlin.

"Caitlin, where's the milk bottles?"

"Oh! I thought Aurora was being breast fed." There's a moment of awkward silence, and she can feel John's amused eyes boring into her back. "But they're down there, right by that corner." Caitlin's adds quickly, a almost pitying looking of amusement crossing her face fleetingly.

"Great!" Clarisse strides over quickly to the empty milk bottles. "And…how am I supposed to do this?" Aurora clings to her chest, drool falling out of her mouth and over her shirt as she stares helplessly at the baby formula and milk bottle.

"Put the milk formula into the bottle, add hot water and shake it, but test and watch out for the temperature." She nearly shrieks as John appears right behind her, flashing her a charming grin.

"Jesus! Do you have ninja skills or something?" Aurora shrieks with laughter at her apparently humourous reaction, and John frowns slightly.

"Language." He chides just like the mother hen he is. "Here. Let me help you." She gives him a funny look as he takes the formula and bottle out of her hands and begins making the formula milk.

She watches almost with amusement as he shakes and presses the bottle to his face, then drips the milk onto his hands to test it's temperature.

"Here."

"Great! Mind shifting over?" She nearly snaps, her left arm cradling the small baby clutching her shirt and gurgling. "Now. Ahhhh." She can almost feel John grinning at her side as she takes the pacifer out of Aurora's mouth. Aurora immediately scrunches her face in protest, opening her mouth to wail out a cry when—Clarisse immediately stuffs the bottle of formula into her mouth.

The baby's look of utter surprise tickles Clarisse, before a bright smile crosses her lips as Aurora begins to suckle on the bottle, her eyes drooping half closed and fingers playing with the sides of the bottle as she chugged down the formula milk. Bright purple green lights rose around Clarisse's body from Aurora's tiny fingers, and reach out to snap a twirling vine around John's wrist as the baby murmurs and claps her feet together, playing with her toes.

"She likes you. She's happy." John points out, and Clarisse rolls her eyes.

"Yes no shit. I'm a doggie and baby magnet, believe me."

"Language!" John chides a little more strongly this time, watching her with something akin to tenderness.

"Okay. You're looking at me awkward. Do I have something on my face?" John turns his face away abruptly.

"No.."

"Okay then!" She turns her focus back to Aurora, cursing as she finds the baby sound asleep and the milk dribbling down her fingers from where she didn't suckle from the bottle.

"Oh shit, that's dirty."

"There's wet wipes there." John hands her magically the wet wipes she needs and she glanced at him through the corner of her eyes as she wipes down Aurora, stirring the baby slightly from her nap. "Hoist her to your shoulder and Pat her back. That should make her burp." She does as what he says and tries not to let the fact that Aurora curling around her shoulder affectionately has softened her slightly hardened heart just slightly.

 _Just. Slightly._

"You'll make a wonderful Mary Poppins, you know." She remarks to John, grinning at his face. "Just add a umbrella and tone down some brawne and you'll be perfect." She's satisfied as she feels a small hiccup burst through Aurora's lips, and the baby goes back to sleeping comfortably on her shoulders.

"You two look a like a couple with a baby." She hears Lorna from a distance, and has to avoid smacking foreheads together with Aurora as the baby perks up sleepily upon hearing her mother's voice.

"Shut up, Mistress Magnetism. Here's your kid." She reluctantly hands Aurora back to Lorna, who coos at her daughter's sleepy face. "I fed her already."

Lorna smirks at her as she holds her daughter.

"I noticed." The raise of her eyebrows are so on point as she glances at Clarisse's shoulder. "I take that John didn't tell you that when babies burp they kinda throw up too?"

"What _what?_ " Clarisse gasps in horror, turning herself round to take a look at the back of her shoulder. "Oh shit! Fuck! That is disgusting!" Lorna's hands are firmly clasped over her daughter's young ears as she grins.

"It can be washed off. But you'll be smelling baby puke on your shoulders for the rest of the night." She smirks at John this time. "Or maybe, you could ask John to help you wash up." She wiggles her eyebrows as Clarisse growls lowly under her breath at what her friend insinuates.

"Not funny, Dane. Not funny at all!" She yells at Lorna's hysterically laughing back, before scowling at John and stomping away towards the toilets, a grudging smile on her lips.

Perhaps, one day.

They might just make good parents after all, when they've gotten all their issues straightened out.

 _ **So I actually finally got down to the point where I wrote finish that ThunderBlink thing I had going on.**_


	24. Metamorphosis

_**Metamorphosis**_

 _ **A/N Prompt: When Lorna and Marcos decide to send Aurora away for her safety, but something drastic happens that changes everything.**_

When their little girl is born, Lorna and Marcos are caught between the throes of glee and partial relief.

Because Aurora is everything they wanted and so much more.

From her ten fingers to ten toes and pale olive skin that balances out to a perfect colour under the sunlight, not too dark nor too light, but a perfect balance and equated tone of both their skin tones and her bright brownish green eyes, Aurora could literally pass off as a normal human child—well, if she had not had her mutation exposed that early of course, because one of the cons of having your mutation as a baby was that you tend to use it more often, subconsciously rather than consciously because it's more of a reflex or an extension of yourself that you can't control.

Marcos remembers Lorna shrieking in the headquarters kitchen, as they found their five month old daughter squealing in blatant happiness, gurgling as she sat in a metal pot, her small fingers opening and clasping the rim of the pot as it floated round and round in circles alongside all the other dangerous metallic objects that were present in the kitchen. ( _They ended up getting plastic knives and utensils instead, with all the metallic knives and dangerous objects kept under lock and key in Lorna's drawers.)_ Even John was amazed at the amount of subconscious control Aurora could exhibit over her abilities in spite of her age, though it could be said that her emphatic abilities were yet another cause of serious debate.

"She could very well be the next powerful Omega level mutant, you know." Lorna rolls her eyes as she holds their daughter and John brushes past, tapping and tweaking the small baby's nose, grinning with satisfaction as it draws a high pitched peal of delighted laughter. Lorna simply runs her hands through her daughter's long black locks, and sighs. Time and the constant running had taught her a few things, especially when it came to Aurora. Until it was absolutely necessary for Aurora to learn how to fight, she wasn't going to take the risks of letting her child live like a fugitive.

And hence when it neared Aurora's fifth birthday, Lorna and Marcos made a desperate decision. The Sentinel Services were closing in, and there definitely was a limited amount of people they could protect or send through, with the tight protocols and security at the borders that had been increased over the years.

They were going to send Aurora away.

Far away.

To a nice normal family that accepted her mutant abilities and would help her conceal them.

And they broke the news to their little girl on the week before her birthday.

That night, Aurora threw the largest, the wildest and the most emotionally messed up emphatic tantrum any four year old could cook up. Headquarters became a range of messed up jumbled emotions, with people crying almost everywhere, wailing in tandem with their four year old's healthy set of lungs, the large drops of tears falling from her bright eyes and chubby cheeks.

"No! Don't wanna go!"

"Aurora—" Lorna tried to go for a hug to comfort their distraught daughter, but Aurora simply pushed her heavily, sprinting for the door in her small pattered footsteps into Caitlin's arms, burying her small face into the human doctor's shoulder as she wailed.

Caitlin glanced helplessly at them.

"Just…take her with you for a while." Lorna tried not to let her voice crack with emotion as she passes a hand over her face, the pain in her chest expanding with each breath, knowing that she would probably never see her daughter again after the week.

"Give her some time." Caitlin whispers, running a soothing hand over the mother and child's back as Lorna tried to hug her daughter yet again, only to get pushed back by a small sweaty palm, defiant and angry.

Lorna nods silently, the words she's unable to utter stuck in the depths of her throat as Marcos silently wraps his arms around her waist.

 _I love you._

….  
But Aurora was smart.

For a four year old, she immediately noticed the fact that all those mutants with visible mutant quirks on their hair, face etc were left behind at the headquarters with their families—which meant that only mutants who could blend in with society were sent away.

And as all impulsive little children who wanted to stay with their parents did, Aurora snuck a huge bottle of spray hair dye out of the storage unit ( _Lorna and Marcos didn't know how the hell she managed to recognise that, but Aurora's their kid, and as a mix of both of them, things related to delinquency tended to come to her more naturally than it should_ ) and dyed her hair a bright pink, staining her clothes, hands and basically—all of her body.

"Look! I'm pink! I get to stay with you, right?!" Lorna very nearly laughs at the dismal sight if her young daughter, in all her pink glory, patches of pink dye obvious on her neck and face, as well as hands as she crosses her feet and tried to hide the evidence. "I woke up this morning and am pink!" She tugs on Lorna's pants, demanding. "I get to stay with you right?"

"Sure, peanut." Aurora's only disappointed when her mother ruffles her hair and turns away, making no decision to change their plans, only to drag her kicking and screaming in Spanish to the bathroom for an hour long of scrubbing the pink dye out of her dark hair and body.

And that was only the first day of Aurora's creative attempts to get to stay.

Soon she begin turning up with makeup on her face. Badly, drawn makeup on her face.

"Sweetie, did you touch Mommy's makeup?" Lorna eyes her four year old with skeptical eyes as she looks at the smudged lipstick at the corners of the little girl's mouth, and and the Kohl around her eyes messily drawn and dripping down in the most ugly way possible.

"Nope! I woke up and was like that! Mutant!" Lorna only sighs and totters her toddler to the bathroom, and they resume an hour or two of hair pulling, deafening screaming as Lorna scrubs the makeup off her daughter's face and clothes yet again, with Aurora wailing that Johnny had lied to her about some mutants being born with their mutant powers being something along the lines of pretty make up all ready on their faces.

Just like that, the week passed, and Lorna was dreading more than ever as they woke up on their daughter's fifth birthday to the last day they would probably ever spend with Aurora. She clenched the locket she had as a second hand present for her daughter as a momento between her fingers, playing with the chain as Marcos traced circles on her back, both of them unable to sleep, when their daughter bursts in suddenly, still in pyjamas and with her body scrunched up like as though something terribly frightening had happened.

"Peanut!" Lorna's the first to react to her daughter's apparent distress, clambering across their bed to reach their five year old, dressed in hand me down pyjamas too big for her frame and her feet curling uncomfortably over each other. "What's wrong?" Aurora glances up tentatively at her mother, and Lorna's breath is taken away by the sight of her bright eyes, brownish green in her irises only the day before, but a blinding bright mint green this time. It's both stunning, and somewhat ethereally beautiful, but disbelief strikes Lorna's chest as she stares at her usually impish daughter.

"Aurora Diaz-Dane. You did not wear contact lenses this time, right?" She watches as her daughter's cheeks colour, before the child fervently shakes her head.

"No?" Surprise colours hers and Marcos' faces. "Are you sure? You're not doing this to get to stay, aren't you?" Aurora merely squeaks, shaking her head, and that's when she starts to run her fingers through her long lustrous dark locks that both Lorna and her were so proud of. Clumps of dark hair started to fall away with each gentle tug of their little girl's fingers, and Aurora whimpers as she holds up a handful of dark locks at her mother's face.

Lorna jerks out of the bed immediately, panic assaulting her senses.

 _What was this?_

 _Cancer? A form of a dormant mutant quirks suppressed but suddenly exploding into view through the desperation of their daughter to stay with them forever?_

Her chest constricts tightly, and the first instinct she has is to turn to Marcos helplessly.

"I'll call Caitlin." He promises just as she pulls her daughter tightly into her arms, comforting her child with body support as she buries her nose in the wonderful scent of her daughter's hair. It's minty from her bath last night, both of them having decided to spend their last night together with a splurge on the special shampoo reserved for special moments because of it's minty smell.

Aurora sniffles in her arms, and Lorna tightens her grip around her daughter, opening her eyes to the small bald patch where her dark locks used to lay that currently stayed limply in her hand.

"It's okay." She whispers as she trains her eyes on that spot, watching with both horror and fascination as a lock of hair rapidly grows to replace the one she'd lost, this time, instead of a dark black colour, a mint green colour that curled past her shoulders and fell as a lock of her fringe.

Another lock of black hair falls from her daughter's scalp, only to be replaced by yet another lock of mint green hair.

By the time Caitlin bursts into the room with her bag in tow and both Marcos and John behind her, she's holding her daughter tightly with both arms, repeating the mantra of "it's okay" in Aurora's ear, being able to give nothing but uttered reassurance to her five year old as her daughter buries her face in Lorna's shoulder, the remains of her once dark hair scattered on the floor, a whole new fresh head of mint green hair sprouting and falling past her shoulders in curled locks.

* * *

 ** _Aurora's new hair_**

* * *

….  
"As far as I can be sure of, there's nothing wrong with her." Caitlin shines a light into their daughter's newly coloured eyes, watching as the mint green pupils follow the bright light with a kind of fervent attentiveness.

Nothing can wipe off the bright smile off their daughter's face as Lorna stares worriedly at Marcos, their plans for daughter's safety twisted and mangled in a useless heap the moment her mutation decided to take on a more viciously obvious colouring in her physical characteristics.

"But why? Why _now_?"

Caitlin sighs at Lorna's question.

"I don't know, maybe some God did hear about that fervent prayer I hear her say every night before bed about letting her stay with her Mommy and Daddy." Lorna worries her bottom her lip as Caitlin affectionately ruffles her daughter's mint green hair. "And I like your new hair, baby girl. It's pretty." The answering smile on their daughter's face is more than dazzling.

Her exuberance and delight at this new change has nearly got her bouncing in her shoes, but that was not what Lorna had wanted for her child—a life well away from the horrors they had to experience was what she wanted for Aurora, now that she had a daughter of her own, Lorna finally understood the angers and desperation that Caitlin had confronted her with when she started training Andy and Lauren to protect themselves.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this." She whispers, her arms curling around her chest uncomfortably as Aurora fidgets, sensing the darkening change in her mother's aura and emotions.

"Hey." Marcos pulls her away from that reverie. "Maybe we should starting thinking from what she truly wants instead of the other way around first." She curls into his shoulder, the worry, panic and fear all stuttering deep in her chest as she breathes, the thought of the Sentinel Services being able to lay their filthy hands on her daughter should she stay a terrible thought that couldn't be swept away.

"But what if—"

"We won't." John steps in this time. "One more one less makes no difference. And Lorna, no parent should be away from their child." Lorna's own eyes turns to her daughter, nervous and relieved at the thought of being able to keep her in her sights at all times.

"Okay. _Okay_." She takes a deep breath as she gathers Aurora into her arms. "Let's make a deal, baby." Her daughter's intelligent eyes stare at hers solemnly. "If you're staying with us there's got to be curfew, alright? Curfew and you can't go running around anywhere or everywhere without telling Daddy or Mommy—"

"But I get to stay with you right?" Her daughter cuts her off, a small finger on Lorna's lips and a demanding tone to her question.

"Yes, but—"

"Forever and Always?" Aurora interrupts yet again, and Lorna nearly reels back at the fervent anguish and desperation in her daughter's eyes. "Because I wanna stay!" She demands, and Lorna's heart ached, then swells as she pulls her daughter into a crushing hug. "Are you having happy tears?" Her daughter's loud but worried demands fills her ears.

"You're staying. Of course I'm happy." Lorna promises, her words choked as she feels tears running down in both desperation and relief down her face.

"I'm never leaving you again, right?"

"Never ever." Marcos echoes the sentiment she can't speak, and pulls them into a warm tight hug.


	25. Pizzas and Overprotective Boyfriends

_**Pizzas and Overprotective Boyfriends**_

 _ **Prompt: irenehogan-blog Marcos keeps asking Lorna if she and the baby are OK like every other minute. She thinks it cute at first then starts to get annoyed.**_

Most of the time Lorna did appreciate how caring and loving Marcos' was in their mutual relationship, but well…sometimes, ( _not that she was really complaining.._ ) he could be a little more than overbearing.

Like for instance, how he was literally asking her almost every other minute if both her and the baby were just fine.

Let's be honest.

It was totally cute and adorable at first, especially when she'd just returned from jail and desired to be pampered. He'd heed to her every call and need, and shower her with almost endless attention that she'd enjoy—until he begun his habit of asking her every time if both she and the baby were fine.

"So.." He's tentative as he inquires, and Lorna exhales roughly out of her nostrils and mouth.

"I'm fucking fine, Marcos. All body functions working." All the pampering and attention had made her more than slightly irritable towards her boyfriend, despite knowing his good intentions. "Just stop asking for a moment." She relents, slightly guilty at suddenly snapping at Marcos, who held his hands up in surrender.

"Aye aye, Captain." The lame attempt of mimicking their familiar childhood show of SpongeBob literally almost makes a half smile appear at the corner of her lips.

 _Almost._

"I'll just ask later. When you're feeling better." He has to add those infernal words after attempting to pacify her, and Lorna's mood immediately drops from a ten to a dangerous zero.

"Marcos…" She grits her teeth and snarls as he flees the room, hurling herself back onto the sofa with a heavy sigh.

He's wise to stay out of her way for the rest of the day, but when Lorna's plastered next to the porcelain toilet bowl half heaving her guts out, she's glad that he appears with conciliatory gifts.

"I heard sour plums help with the nausea."He mumbles sheepishly.

See what she meant by caring and wonderful?

She nearly moans as she pops the plum into her mouth, and it goes down her gullet into her stomach, unlike the rest of the food she's been regurgitating almost all day.

"I swear, morning sickness is the worst." Marcos chuckles as he pulls her flush against his warm chest, both of them seated on the toilet floor. Lorna groans, turning her head slightly as her stomach roils, the cool tiles of the wall providing a psychological sense of relief for her ridiculous purging of her body.

"Wait till you start gaining weight." Lorna swears he makes the most inappropriate jokes and puns at the most awful times, and she shoots a wordless glare at him for the weight statement. "You'll still look stunning anyway."

"Yeah, as stunning as a beach whale." She more than disgruntled at that mental image, and Marcos buries his face laughingly into her neck.

"With elastic pants." She freezes at his words.

"I'm sorry, elastic _what_?" Marcos can almost hear the terror and horror in her voice, and he croons sympathetically, cradling her safely in his arms as he carries her like a baby back to bed. She's half closed her eyes, and Marcos is almost worried enough to run for Caitlin when Lorna cracks open her eyes to glare at him and whine.

"I'm hungry." He nearly laughs with relief, before grinning at the familiar Lorna that he knew so well resurfacing.

"Okay. So milk and honey? Cookies?" She's lazy enough and crippled enough by her nausea to simply push against his face in agreement.

He nods, shaking his head with a laugh slightly.

"So no other cravings?" He almost regrets saying those words as he walks out of the door.

"And pizza."The admission is quiet but loud enough for him to hear. "Pizza with cheese crust and all kinds of toppings." She pauses momentarily. "And olives. And green stuff. No broccoli. Make it nice and hot."

Marcos wants to laugh as she dismissed him like the princess she is to him and swiftly turns to her side to sleep.

He only hopes she does know that the nearest pizza parlour is around a three hour drive away.

"The things we do for love." He grins slightly to himself as he makes a mental note of the utterly specific piece of pizza his girlfriend craves. "I'll be out!" He calls over to John, who stares at him incredulously.

"But we don't need supplies—"

"Pizza emergency." He's out of the door before John can grasp the concept of what he's just said and tease him about how whipped he is over Lorna.

"Now, cheese crust, hot, green stuff, no broccoli…." His voice carries over the wind slightly to the bedroom window where Lorna sleeps as he makes his way to the car and the pizza parlour in order to get the pizza his girlfriend craves, and Marcos fails to see her sheepish but happy face looking down from their window at his silhouette as he makes his way down the path to the streets.

Lorna sighs dreamily as he disappears from view, her mind and mouth watering with the thought of the lovely pizza was so faithfully gonna bring.

See?

Faithful, Amazing, and pizza toting. Just what she needs

 _ **And here's the first of the fics for the gifted hiatus party!**_

 _ **Kudos to themutantunderground for setting things up :3**_

 _ **LOL, and this was influenced by Emma Dumont's overwhelming love for Pizza and all things related to Pizza.**_


	26. Kittens and Marcos

**_Kittens and Marcos_**

 ** _Prompt: Taken from written prompts posted by themutantunderground"Look what I found, it's a kitty!" "That is NOT a kitty!"_**

 ** _Couple: Eclaris_**

Now, everyone in the Mutant Underground knew that there was one thing that Marcos hated more than anything, which was cats.

More of the…cat like species didn't appeal to him. He was more of a dog or a puppy person. It had something to do with the blanketing horrors of his childhood, which were really…just plain laughable. Marcos remembered Lorna laughing at his expense so hard when he tried desperately to explain the reason why he hated the feline cat species with utmost hatred in his heart.

"But why? They're so cute! They've got fluffy ears and nice fur—"

"They're monsters." Lorna tries not to giggle as her boyfriend deadpans. "They scratch me and my bed sheets when I try to hug them."

"That's because you're too hot." Lorna coos comfortingly, snuggling into his embrace. "And cats are free spirited animals who don't like to be confined nor restrained."

"Hah!" The snort of derisive laughter was barely out of his nose as Lorna played with the collar of his shirt. "Not happening, Lorna. We are not getting a kitten." He paused as she pouted. "Not even with that kind of pout."

"Not even if I promise to let you do anything to me tonight?" The suggestion is as enticing as the long legs Lorna curls seductively around his waist, and Marcos has to fight hard to swallow as he quells his impulsive agreement for that idea.

"Really. Selling out yourself for a kitten." He deadpans at his girlfriend, tracing circles on her back gently. "And it's not like I can't do anything to you—even without that promise I still can do whatever I'd like with you. Just with more of a power struggle." He laughs as his girlfriend deflates, then mumbles as she sinks with a pout back into his lap.

"No kittens, and that's final."

….

Of course, it had to be when their little girl was finally born that he finds out Lorna has been brainwashing her since her time in the womb to love and ardently adore kittens, and even to the extent to sneak them into their room they shared with their five year old daughter.

Marcos finds this out the hard way, when he'd tried to shift a couple of boxes in their new headquarters that they had relocated to.

Lorna and Aurora grinned at each other as they heard a loud yelp and crash, not to mention a few sounds of an adult tumbling and crashing over boxes while cursing like a sailor. Lorna clapped her hands around her daughter's small ears and shot a disheveled Marcos a sly grin as he came out of the room, bearing the tiny hidden gift that his daughter had tried to hide in her bedroom to prevent from being discovered.

Lorna nearly laughs at the absolutely ugly kitten in Marcos' hands, with matted fur and a ear half lobbed off, one leg obviously crippled and shorter than the rest, and with an extremely grumpy squished face that uncurled itself when it mewed.

"What. Is. This." He holds the ugly kitten by the scruff of it's neck as Aurora squeals and reaches for the kitten, grabbing it to snuggle it in her arms.

Lorna grins at his stumped expression.

"Ask your daughter. She brought it into the headquarters even when I told her not to."

"But _Ma_!"

"Okaaaaay. So. What is that infernal thing doing here?" He flinches as the kitten growls at him, content in Aurora's arms. "See he growled!"

"He's just mewling, Papa! He's scared because you're scary." Aurora says a matter of factly, patting the kitten as it settles in her lap contentedly. "And his name is Mr Prickles!"

"No no no. We are not having kittens in the house!"

"But! I found him! And he's a poor little kitty!" Marcos nearly cries with despair as his daughter pouts. Why couldn't she see through that devious thing's mask of indifference and ugly fur?

"That is NOT a kitty!" He all but hurls at his daughter, terrified as the kitten stretches and them yawns right in his face. "See, he's mocking me!"

"He's just tired, Papa. Fighting with you is tiring." Aurora crunches on her cereal a matter of factly. "And Mr Prickles is a nice kitty! He just needs a bath and he'll like you!" Lorna laughs as her boyfriend mutters under his breath, paranoidly adjusting his sleeves to cover his bare forearms.

"I can't believe this! This ain't a kitty! I thought it's supposed to be all fluffy white and cute—Lorna, help me out here! This ugly thing is a—"

"It's a kitty." Marcos' jaw drops as his girlfriend presses a kiss on their daughter's forehead. "And Momma's fine with keeping it." She coos, gently stroking the kitten with her index finger. The ugly kitten purrs fondly, and Marcos gapes.

"Now you try, daddy." His daughter commands, and Marcos sighs in resignation.

"Ahem. Here kitty kitty. Here…" His voice trembles ever so slightly as Lorna watches with amusement, and Mr Prickles eyes his finger with contemplative distaste, before placing it's paw on his finger in lordly acceptance and purring like the overlord supreme he was in the household.

Marcos nearly collapses to the ground as the only two women in his family cheers at the acceptance of the kitten of him.

This was a absolute disaster.

He's never going to manage to get that infernal thing out of his life isn't he?

He half glares at the infernal kitten, who he's positively sure is gloating at him from it's kingly chair on Aurora's seat.

Yep. He's not gonna disappear. And his life is definitely ruined.

Like probably…ever.

 _ **So…I hope themutantunderground doesn't mind I took some prompts from the list of written prompts made xD Because it just suddenly gave me a lightbulb in the morning when I was scrolling through my feed.**_

 _ **I churned it out as quick as I could to try to make it in time for the hiatus party :3 I hope I ain't too late.**_

 _(Well, its kinda belated down here, since xD I posted this around a week ago on my tumblr. Sigh. I really suck at posting on )_

 _I'm sorry._


	27. Action Movies and Forgetting Crushes

_**Action Movies and Forgetting Crushes**_

 _ **Prompt: From written dialogue prompts credits to themutantunderground**_

 _ **If you quote an action movie one more time…"**_

 _ **"Go ahead, punk, make my day."**_

 _ **That's IT."**_

Marcos finds out all about Lorna's obsession with action movies and stuff that destroys and fights when they are both curled up on their tiny sofa, with a pile of stolen movie DVDs by their side, whirring and cranking on their tv as they powered through one action movie after another.

Marcos nearly yawns as he leans slightly on his right arm, watching as Thor summons lighting from the top of the tower and hurls it directly at the infernal aliens invading for the second time of the day.

He's bored.

Utterly bored.

But his girlfriend was throughly enjoying herself, as if the loud crunches of popcorn kernels against her teeth as she chews through their third bucket of popcorn wasn't indicative enough of her enjoyment.

"Lorna." He tries to get her attention. "Lorrrnnaaaaa." She deftly tosses a unopened packet of popcorn at his face, eyes still glued to the TV as she snuggles into his warm arms, sighing with contentment as the movie plays on.

Marcos stares quietly down at the packet of unpopped popcorn on his lap.

Great.

So now his appeal has been reduced to something below that of even a film movie and popcorn?

He lights up the packet of popcorn with one hand, eyeing his girlfriend slightly as he contemplated the best route to draw her attention away from the action movies that were playing.

His fingers inches slowly past the bottom of her camisole to start tracing patterns on her cold skin, his fingers lighting warmly as he hums, and Marcos grins in satisfaction as he feels Lorna shift more into him.

"Stop it."

"Stop what?" He grins that offensive grin that has Lorna chuckling at him.

"Trying to distract me."

"Mhm. Is it working?"

"Maybe?" Lorna gasps as he starts to sample the skin of her neck, his fingers tracing her belly slowly and sensually.

"Then I'll keep doing it."

"Marcos. I'm trying to watch Thor and his muscular arms."

"We've seen that twice in a day!" Marcos nearly whines at her. "Don't you ever feel bored?"

"Nope?" Lorna simply pops more popcorn back into her mouth and chews, stealing the freshly done bag of popcorn off Marcos' hands. "Hot men and hot muscles. I can watch them everyday, anytime."

Marcos grumbles under his breath.

 _Tactic 1, diversion of attention through subtle but casual hints of sexual exploits._

 _Failure._

Perhaps he should try something that appealed more to her action side, since she was so taken with the actions movies.

Marcos clears his throat.

"What?" Lorna barely hears him, her eyes never leaving the screen.

"You know, you're a disease, and I'm the cure." He fistpumps as she finally turns to stare at him fully in the face, positively flummoxed, then sags as she turns her attention back to the show.

"For a person who knows action movies, you really suck at it's puns and lines." She passes to stuff more popcorn into her mouth. "It wasn't even appropriate! You just made it cheesy."

"Well, I guess my Shit filter's full." Lorna snaps her head to his sharply this time.

"You're distracting me! Stop it! And you're destroying my action movies for me!"

Marcos coughs.

"Well, you're gonna get down on your hands and knees and you're gonna beg me for a break. Well, guess what? I don't give breaks. No breaks." He shakes his head solemnly for emphasis as Lorna drops her head back with a loud groan, her attention fully deviated from the Avengers by his awful timing at quoting action movies.

"Are you serious right now? What's your problem?!"

"Actually, my problem's not medical. It's psychological." Lorna buries her head into the bowl of popcorn with a groan.

"I am this close to punching you in the gut." She hissed as Marcos stretched and shrugged.

"Well darlin', sometimes anger is more useful than despair." Lorna literally deflates at his merciless use of action movie one liners.

"Come on! Just let me enjoy my Hemsworth muscles for one last time!" Marcos grins at her pleading face, knowing that his girlfriend was just this close to snapping and lunging herself at him.

"Unfortunately, the needs of the many outweigh … the needs of the few … or the one." He intones, hearing Lorna grind her teeth beside him as he chuckles.

"Diaz, I swear, if you quote an action movie one more time…"

Lorna immediately regrets making that threat, because Marcos simply shoots her a shit eating grin at those words.

"Don't say it. Don't you dare say it!"

"Go ahead, punk, make my day."

"THATS IT!" Movie and popcorn completely forgotten, Lorna springs from her seat next to Marcos and pounces on him, both of them shrieking and squirming as they tried fighting each other for control.

"Why can't you let me watch my muscle in peace?!" Lorna wails as Marcos pins her down in the sofa as she thrashes.

"You've watched him twice in one day! And I need attention too!" It's a whirlwind of scratching and nipping at skin as both Lorna and Marcos battle each other for dominance on the sofa.

"Wait wait! Uncle! Uncle!" Lorna pants, her camisole riding up to her ribs as they grin at each other, half exhausted from their wrestle play, the sound of the Avengers fighting still playing loudly in the background.

"Let's make a deal."

"Oh?" Marcos raised his eyebrows interestedly. "What deal?"

"I share some attention with you, and in return after that, I get to watch another two Hemsworth movies."

Marcos growls lowly at that preposition, biting his girlfriend punishingly on her neck.

"Okay okay! Just one! One!"

"Or perhaps I may have a better deal." Marcos breathes out lowly in his girlfriend's ear. "How about I try making you forget all about your crush on Hemsworth through practical action?" Lorna giggles nervously at the dark predatory look in Marcos' eyes.

"Maybe?" She bites her lips nervously, watching as Marcos closed in on her like animal hunting it's prey.

"Well, the deal is the deal." Lorna's laugh dissolves into a gasp at his last attempt at the action movie line, before she literally dissolves into a puddle of warm unadulterated pool of mewling desire as her boyfriend makes good on the deal he promised, all thoughts of hot men and action movies thrown out of her head as he took her to greater heights.

~~~~  
 _ **Aaaand, yet another fic churned out for the hiatus party, kudos to themutantunderground for dialogue prompt inspiration xD**_


	28. Halloween

_**Halloween**_

 _ **Prompt: themutantunderground "I don't think I've ever seen that much candy before."**_

 _ **"Well don't get excited, it's all mine."**_

 _ **Soulmate AU**_

 _ **Child!Lorna: Age 10**_

 _ **Child!Marcos: Age 12**_

 _ **Foster parents!: ThunderBlink**_

It's Halloween when Lorna finally gets to unleash her Uber innocence and childlike tendencies.

Marcos could only safely say that because he currently eyeing a dolled up Lorna bouncing on sugar rush all over their sofa with a fond grin on his own face as she squeals, high from the sugar and deliriously happy at not needing to dye her hair black.

He spies Clarisse laughing loudly at the corner, no longer shy and tentative as Lorna and her both Bellow out a cheer, clinking glasses as they pore over each distinctive mark on their bodies that usually differentiated them from the rest as mutants.

Halloween was the day that Lorna could be herself in the outside world, safe from scrutiny and judging eyes because of costumes and makeup that people took to wearing as tradition, which meant green hair for Lorna and no make up and contacts for Clarisse. He watches as John strides over to Clarisse and hooks an arm tenderly around her waist, and Marcos chuckles as Lorna pouts at their display of affection.

"Hey Lorn." He laughs as she squeals and throws herself into his arms, humming happily as she snuggles contentedly into his arms, curling her small arms around his neck and burying her face in the crook of his neck, one hand obssessively touching the mark of the Aurora Borealis near his collar bone fleetingly.

His body thrums with happiness as Lorna tucks her legs around his waist and he swings her around happily, glad to see the full blown smile on his small Soulmates adorable face.

"Shall we go?"

"Trick or Treat!" Her small hand is warm in his as she crows happily, tearing off down the path and nearly dragging him through the bushes as Clarisse and John both laugh at his expense.

"Whoa whoa! Slow down!" He catches her just as she trips and nearly falls, only to realise that he's fallen for her trick as she falls on him with a scream of delight, giggling happily as she smudges fresh snow in his face, her cheeks pink and red like fresh apples from the cold wind. "You shouldn't do that." He dusts the snow off her coat gently, chiding with a fond smile on his face.

"But Marcos always catches me!" The absolute trust in her tiny smile warms his lonely heart as she hugs his chest quickly, fingers latching onto his hands as she tugs him down the lawn to the next house. "Come on! Or else we'll lose all the candy!"

Both of them trudge up the pathway to the house of their neighbours, and Lorna's as flighty as a bird as she reaches up to ring the doorbell.

"Trick or Treat!" Both of them chorused at the same time, identical cute grins on their faces as they held out their buckets ( _Marcos was holding the fluffy bunny bucket Lorna had spent a day making for him, complete with green fur and sparkling atrocious lights, while Lorna held his wire bucket that he made for her, the strands glowing and gleaming prettily with his solar energy, the stones he'd imbued his powers with shattering into bright beautiful light._ )

"If it isn't our adorable young Soulmates." The lady at the door coos as she dumps the sweets into the bucket. "You look dashing as usual, Marcos. And Lorna! What a pretty darling you are!"

"He's handsome." Marcos can't stop his cheeks from blushing as Lorna leans forward conspiratorially to agree with their neighbour. "He just doesn't know it yet."

"Oh and what are you gonna do when pretty ladies come chasing after him, young one?"

"Chase them away!" Marcos' heart swells in his chest as Lorna swells importantly, her eyes bright. "Marcos is _mine_!"

He smiles shyly as she grabs his hand possessively and tugs them away from the house, not before he turns to wave a shy goodbye to the nice lady neighbor that had given them sweets only moments before.

….

They both cold and tired at the end of the trick or treat, noses red from the cold but buckets filled to the brim with sweets that could very well send them into diabetes and sugar rush the next week.

"I don't think I've ever seen so much candy before." Marcos heaves his heavy bucket of sweets onto the table just as Lorna clambers up with hers, a trail of sweets from her pretty bag he had made for her scattering over the floor as she totters slightly in her overblown dress.

"Well, don't get excited. It's all mine!" Marcos only smiles tenderly as he picks up the stray sweets she scatters all over the place in her absolute glee, before placing them back on the table.

"I'm cold." Lorna sniffles, and Marcos immediately turns, his palms lighting up to cup her gently as he rubs her freezing hands and shoulders.

"There there. All better?"

"Mhm!" The bright lights are back in her hazel green eyes as she beams at Marcos.

"Are we pooling our sweets together?" Marcos grunts as he emptied out his basket onto the table. "You can pick the ones you like first though." Lorna hums in reply, and Marcos is simply content in watching the usually reserved her burn with a bright exuberance that only Lorna has in her extreme throes of delight.

"Well, someone is extremely happy today." John leans forward on his muscular arms as he peers at the two children, one bursting with happiness and Sparks of greenish electrical energy as she bounces on the back of her feet, the other, simply happy and content at watching the other being so deliriously excited.

"That's because we have sweets!" Lorna all but squeals as John chuckles.

"But you can't eat all today." The loud groan from Lorna sends Marcos patting her back comfortingly by her side as she whines.

"You'll get cavities if you eat too much, Lorn." He advises like the cool soulmate he is to his hot headed counterpart.

"But!"

"We can have some today, then more tomorrow, can't we Uncle John?" John sighs as he relents at the slight tilt of Marcos' head. If he didn't agree to what Marcos said, he might as well prepare himself for the very rare loud tantrum in the form of Lorna Dane coming his way.

"Alright alright. But you have to listen to Marcos, alright?"

"Yes!" The cheeky cheer is back on Lorna's face and John chuckles, knowing that despite Marcos solemn promise, he was pretty much a big pushover when it actually came to his soulmate.

He smiles back at Clarisse as she waits for him at the door, the pleasant sound of Marcos and Lorna ( _who already crammed two sweets in her mouth and was begging for Marcos to let her have more_ ) behind them in the kitchen.

"Come on, big guy. We've got our own Halloween to trick or treat." John chuckles at his girlfriend's cheeky grin, and slides the doors close behind them, curling his arms around Clarisse's waist and pressing a fond kiss to her cheek.

"Happy Halloween, babe."

 _ **So xD this one turned out pretty unexpected, because I had no idea it would end up with both ThunderBlink and Eclaris.**_


	29. Breathe

_**Breathe**_

 _ **WARNING: This fic down here may be a little dark and angsty, so a fair warning for people who are sensitive towards issues of miscarriage or losing a child.**_

 _ **A/N: When I chanced upon this dialogue prompt from themutantunderground ,the only thought for a prompt that I had that would fit the prompt was an angsty one. So I started to write xD and it turned out darker than expected. I know some of you may believe that a Dark Lauren is somewhat OOC from her character in her show, but I believe everyone has the propensity to actually be dark. It is the anger and the dark emotions in your chest that directs you on that path–only difference is: if you choose to listen to its calling and turn yourself into a monster that has the capacity to kill. I believe Lauren DOES have that darkness in her, its just that as the more grounded two of the Strucker siblings, when her brother is volatile and angry, she takes it as her responsibility to be the calmer one, as well as the more grounded one, but she does have the capacity to become evil too, or be vengeful. So this is my take on it :3 I originally thought it would be an angsty Eclaris, since its my otp, BUT WELL.**_

 _ **Side Note: Lauren's powers lie in the essence of matter manipulation, bordering on elemental manipulation, hence I took the idea that she could manipulate air molecules to her bidding to a higher level. For all we know, anger or grief does help in increasing mutant abilities or the feel of their own powers.**_

 _ **Dark!Lauren**_

 _ **Couple: Eclaris**_

 _ **Prompt: "Breathe, please breathe."**_

The atmosphere of the once cheerful headquarters is deathly silent, save for the cries of shrill hoarse pain that fills the air sporadically in the direction of Lorna and Marcos' room. All of them are gathered right outside the room that Lorna's in, having just managed to rescue her from the twisted facility that was experimenting on both Lorna and her unborn child, boosting and torturing Lorna's powers both mentally and physically. And it was obvious how much it had affected her, for the slim lanky leader of the Mutant Underground was reduced to almost an unhealthy image of skin and bones, mirroring Claire who had died from an overdose of the drug Doctor Campbell had consistently given her, and it was obvious her body, despite having fought to survive and hold her baby safe for a couple months more, was giving out.

The moment they had taken her off the support that was delaying the inevitable, her body had gone into an extreme reaction from the rough withdrawal of the drug and medicine, forcing her body into a state of prematured labour in an attempt to rid Lorna's body of any possible impedement to her body's survival and recovery, both external and internal.

Lauren's throat tightened.

That meant that Aurora was four to three months too early to come into the world.

The smell of metallic blood filled the air and made bile rise up Lauren's throat, and she watched her mother bustle in the room, hands slick with red _red_ blood, her face tight with concentration.

"Hey." Andy grabs her hands tightly. She knows he's feeling just as much guilt as she is for leading Lorna into a trap, despite how unintentional it was.

"If we hadn't gone ahead with what we planned, Lorna might not have been captured." Lauren whispers softly, her blonde hair falling over her face slightly. "If we'd been stronger—"

"There's no use regretting now. Lorna's always been a fighter." John's voice was rough with emotion as he tried to comfort the two young teens, but the shake of his voice betrayed the amount of nerves he felt for the condition of his friend.

"Marcos." All of them are startled from their silent reverie as Caitlin retreats from the bloodied room, face pale and wane from working hours on end in saving both Lorna and her baby.

"Caitlin." Marcos is half torn with anxiety and grief. "Are they alright? Is _Lorna_ alright?"

Their mother chafs her hands slightly in anxiety, her eyes trying not to meet Marcos' earnest ones desperately.

"Caitlin." John steps up, holding a supporting hand on his friend's back before giving Caitlin a low nod.

"Lorna's fine. I've managed to stop the bleeding, and whatever drugs they pumped her with, it's fading from her system." Caitlin swallows, her throat tightening as she meets her children's eyes and Reed's eyes with tentative honesty. "It's Aurora I'm not so sure about." The whisper delivered is fairly soft, but still equally devastating.

"Wait. W-wait, so it's a girl?" Marcos can't help but feel torn at the happiness and grief that mingles in his heart.

"She's small, but she's Perfect. Just weak." Caitlin whispers. "I don't think she's gonna make it past tonight. Whatever the drugs did to Lorna, it impacted Aurora the most. She's not breathing on her own, and her lungs are underdeveloped. She's not even getting enough oxygen into her lungs, and her heart can't keep up with the stress her body is putting it through. Her body is slowly breaking down."

"Isn't there anything that we can do?"

"Here? I don't have the facilities to give her the right life support nor the expert care she needs to be able to pull through the first few months of her life." Caitlin responds almost immediately. "I know she urgently needs surgery to help her breathe, but I–I've never studied that far in my nursing career. I'm not the best doctor to be able to help determine if—"

"Caitlin?" They're rudely interrupted by Lorna sudden frail but frantic and hysterical voice. "Caitlin, my baby–she's not breathing; she's not breathing!" Marcos starts almost violently, dashing in after a pale Caitlin back into the room that smelt of death and gloom, and Lauren slowly stepped beyond the threshold to peer in, reeling back at the strong scent of blood and just nothing but more blood.

Lorna was a matted mess of blood, sweat and tears, her chest heaving as she curled over a small figure, whose tiny chest Lauren could just barely make out it's slow rise and fall.

"Lorna, I need to see what's wrong with Aurora, you need to let her go."

"I can't! She's gonna leave me if I do." Marcos grabs his girlfriend by the arms, gritting his teeth as he fights her tooth and nail to hold her away from their struggling daughter.

Lauren's eyes are wide at the bluish baby that's as tiny as half of her mother's arm length, and the small mouth thats opening and close like a fish out of water. Even under that mess of blood and fluids of a newborn child, she could make out the slight cute upturn of Lorna's nose, the wild messy curls from Marcos, dark and slightly greenish under the light, and the pale skin marred with blue from the lack of oxygen.

The small baby that they had all looked forward to be meeting, that was so clearly Lorna and Marcos' coughed, then wheezed for breath, her lungs collapsing inwards than expanding outwards as she struggled to breathe a single breath.

"I don't–I don't have the equipment to keep her alive, Marcos, she's dying." Lauren has never seen her mother so distraught and frantic before, and her feet stay rooted to the ground as the small chest struggles desperately to rise, then falls with a sound whoosh, and became deathly still.

Lorna keens a low mourn in the near distance, and Lauren flinches as though she's gotten a electric shock at the pure agony that ripples through her mentor's voice.

"No no _no no._ " Caitlin backs away slowly as Lorna gathers the remains of her newborn in her arms, tears spilling like a raging river over her hollow cheekbones and splashing onto her arms. " _Breathe_.Please, breathe. Aurora. Baby, please. _Breathe_." Marcos simply holds her as he stares at the half swaddled daughter he barely got to know, and slowly presses a comforting kiss to Lorna's temple, his agony blatant in his avoidance of looking at everywhere but his dead daughter.

Lauren steps out of the room, her chest hollow and empty, and the mantra of a distraught mother that just lost a child echoing through her head filling her with broken rage.

….  
Doctor Campbell stares up from his chained cell at the young blonde mutant that was the less violent of the two, her brother like a dark shadows figure hovering close by her side.

"Hows the baby?" He thinks he sees a violent flash of anger and remorse flicker through the girl's face at his words. "I hope she made it. She'd have been really strong from all that boosting."

"You make me sick." The low violent echo of Lauren's voice even surprises her brother with it's vehemence. Lauren has always been close to Lorna, even way before she had been captured, both mentor and student reveling in each other's strength and appreciating what each could mutually do. In Lorna, Lauren had found a kindred friend that she could look up to, and now, there was nothing left of Lorna but tears and shattered pieces that could never really be put back together.

"None of them know that both of you are down here, don't they?" Campbell is smug in his speech, taunting in his words as he smirks at the uncontrollable anger Lauren shows. "I'm guessing they must be mourning the child's death. If only you had waited till the full term of the pregnancy before rescuing Lorna Dane, then perhaps, the chances of the baby surviving might have simply…risen."

"Don't you feel any guilt? Not even a single piece of guilt for ripping a child of her life before it even begun?"

"I created experimentations of mutants to give humans the boost the needed in order to triumph as the superior species amongst their more…superpowered friends." The doctor said lowly. "It's both profitable and lucrative for science. A new knowledge to add to our histories, starting with the beating down of those that are far ahead of us. Which are, people like you."

Lauren feels her brother's anger roiling beneath her veins as he trembles beside her, and the ground shakes just so minutely as he struggles to rein in his temperamental temper.

"I'm gonna kill you for this." She delivers her sentence with a smile, the aching urge to do something to avenge the loss of the child upstairs taking over her usually less violent temperament. "Painfully. And slowly. I'm gonna forget everything about peacemaking and make the last three minutes of your life the longest that you've ever experienced." She feels her brother's horrified eyes on her. Andy has always been the volatile one, the more destructive of the two, while she was the calmer and more sensible counterpart. They worked liked a clockwork, but Lauren knew that deep down she had the capacity to be violent when she wanted.

It was just a matter of choosing not to.

And with Aurora's death, that was the final straw.

"Lauren." Her brother's low warning falls on deaf ears as she steps forward powerfully, her fingers twitching half in anticipation and eagerness for the vengeance she promised.

"Are you sure you're the one that has the right to strip me of my life? I thought, perhaps the mother might be more inclined to take revenge with her own hands." Till the end, the atrocious doctor still has the indecency to laugh in her face, and it sends Lauren's blood boiling.

"No, I don't. But I'm doing this so that you can't harm anyone ever again. Take it as something from all of us." Lauren tilts her head ever so slightly, a picture of perfect innocence as she smiles, eyes creasing and lips twisting upwards in a angelic curve.

The doctor simply laughs softly at her self righteous exclamation.

"I guess monsters do give birth to monsters." He grins toothily up at the siblings. "That can never change."

"Oh yes. But it's always the quietest monsters you have to watch out for, Doctor." Lauren's anger amplifies her matter manipulation abilities, and the air around her hums with her sensitivity towards the molecules that she's always been able to feel so attuned to. "Because the quiet monsters don't lash out like the others. They bottle up their anger and wreck destruction when they've lost enough." She twists her fingers violently, feeling the air molecules respond to her call as it twists and rips the air out of Doctor Campbell's lungs and body, forming a vacuum unseen to human eyes. She watches with quiet vengeance as his cheeks hollow, and his lungs collapse into themselves, the flesh of his cheeks twisting off violently as she rips the last of the remaining air in his lungs away through his mouth, depriving him of well needed oxygen.

"I thought this would be a fitting end, since Aurora's lungs collapsed the same way just moments after she was born. She couldn't breathe, you know." Lauren continued, watching as the doctor gurgled on his own blood, his lungs turning inside out as she deprived him from life giving oxygen and air, the tell tale signs of his lungs hemorrhaging beginning in the gurgles of liquid blood that bubbles in sound from his chest. "That medicine you injected directly into her bloodstream even before she was born was slowly killing her."

She could feel Andy's horror at her actions as he shifted behind her, and Lauren exhaled, releasing her grip on the air molecules swiftly as soon as she deemed Campbell too far gone to be medically rescued.

"Good day, doctor." She turns to her stiff brother. "Andy, Let's go." In spite of Andy's horror at her actions, they leave Campbell in the cellar, drowning in his lungs of blood, and even as his body, with signs of death by Lauren's distinctive air matter manipulation, is found hours after John remembers they've held captives in their basement, no one, not even their parents say a single word.

 _ **This is definitely AU, because neither Lorna nor Lauren have interacted that much. Also, prepare yourselves for yet another angst filled prompt next. It only gets darker from here and I hope I did the breakdown as well as the angst much justice.**_


	30. The Day the World Went Away

**_The Day the World Went Away_**

 ** _A/N: This is a continuation of yesterday's fic Breathe that I wrote, but slightly AU in terms of the manner of Aurora's death as well as the age she died. In The Day the World Went Away, Aurora died aged 5, from experimental torture after being kidnapped by Doctor Campbell's contractor industry in order to research a new form of virus that affects the X-gene. A bullet was put through her head as her parents came to rescue her, so Lorna watched her struggle for her last few moments with a unknown virus before one of the contractors put a bullet through her brain to end her "misery". And so this is the aftermath from Marcos' POV and eyes. The reason as to why I didn't write a separate Breathe version 2 was because I felt that Breathe part 1 was sordid and heartbreaking enough (I might change my mind though), and that my readers didn't need to go through another angst filled and tear jerking story of a child's death yet again._**

 ** _Warning!: This fic contains mentions of insanity and bad language. It is a raw rough angry version of losing someone dear. Destructive grieving behaviour, both emotional and physical etc. are mentioned! If you're uncomfortable with such sensitive issues such as child death and allusions to insanity, please refrain from reading._**

 ** _Please note that the author does not encourage such insane actions. Even if it is a form of tackling grief._**

 ** _Prompt: 13. Don't ask me that."_**

 ** _14\. "You could've died! Do you realize that?"_**

 ** _16\. "I can't…I can't lose you._**

 ** _Credits to themutantunderground for the dialogue prompts that I lumped together to make and write this angst ridden fic._**

Lorna was not doing well.

Anyone who wasn't blind could see that fact for themselves in her achingly thin body, the almost non-existent look on her face, the tilt of her body as she hums to herself by the sill and her obliviousness to everything around her.

She was grieving, but in a destructive way.

They had left her alone in the few days after Aurora had died in her arms, the last breath stuttering from her small lips, Lorna's devastation almost physically tearing everything apart.

They all bore marks of the disaster, healing bones and broken bodies, the creak and groan of the entire headquarters on it's shaky foundations, and the almost omniscient smell of metallic blood everywhere mingled with the scent of salty tears.

So they had left her alone at her behest, choosing to let her grieve in silence for her only child that she'd gained and lost.

It turned out to be probably the worst choice that they could have ever made after all.

Marcos was the first to notice the changes in her.

How could he not though, being the one closest and sharing the equally devastating grief that nearly tore all of them apart?

It crushed him as she begin to physically build walls between them, the non-existent line of boundary and grief piling and shoving it's ass in the middle of their bed in the form of fluffy pillows. At first it extended just down the middle—he'd find himself hugging a pillow in the middle of the night instead of being curled around Lorna protectively, with her just centimeters from his touch, her green hair on the pillow and back to him.

Then, the pillows started building up, forming in a shape of a box that enclosed around Lorna both physically and mentally. He'd find her lost in her own world hours at end, humming the lullaby that Aurora used to demand her to sing despite her awful singing capabilities in repeat right in the middle of that small enclosed and tight pillow fort, a blank smile on her face and no tears on her cheeks as she touched the ragged dolls they had gotten for their dead daughter's upcoming birthday with a almost reverent and sacred touch.

He'd snap her out of it immediately, the fear of losing her to the recesses of her dark mind overtaking him more by the minute—she was the _only thing_ left of this world that gave meaning to his life and this world—and if Marcos was to lose her just like they lost their daughter, he believed he'd never be able to come back from his own version of insanity ever again.

It became a routine for them, their relationship reduced to one of a mere catatonic push and pull, and while she anchors him to his reality, Marcos knows that he is not the anchor to Lorna's own world. The moment their child had entered their world, Aurora had been what anchored Lorna and everything that encompassed her love for the world. She was Lorna's existence, redemption and hope, everything that Lorna felt she could entrust her visions of life and future—until it was taken just as swiftly by the cruel world that society made, that deemed them misfits and outcasts in places they should have felt they belonged, crushing that small amount of hope Lorna had clung to and protected, sheltered and loved.

"You have to stop doing this." He's broken at seeing her like this, lost, untethered and on the brink of insanity, letting her grief consume her in it's entirety. " _Lorna._ "

She barely manages to jerk out of her blank reverie at his distressed cry, the call of his voice, the tug of her heart that still recalled to the love she held for him making her lift her head to meet his eyes.

"I can't… can't do anything like this. You have to tell me what you want me, no, need me to do to help alleviate this burden. It's crushing and suffocating _us_ , can't you see?" For a moment he has the wild thought he managed to get through her, the life returning for a split moment in her hazel green eyes, before it extinguishes and she entirely avoids his question, turning to her side like a petulant child.

"Don't ask me that."

Marcos nearly cries with frustration, the toll of seeing the love of his life voluntarily destroy herself instead of helping herself—rejecting his offers to help crushing him beyond repair.

" _Then what would you have me do!_ " The cry tears itself like a feral beast from his mouth, manifesting itself in pent up rage and anger. Marcos channels his guilt and his anguish into his actions, physically tearing away the pillow boundary she created, not even flinching back as Lorna cries out, lashing out not with her powers, but her hands and feet, flailing weakly at his chest as he grabs her and pulls her roughly from her spot in the bed.

"Aurora's gone, Lorna!" He roars. " _Gone!_ And there's nothing we can do but grieve about it! But in grieving we do not desecrate her memory by turning into a useless insane person that crushes every hope of surviving even though they are alive and they can do something while they're alive!" Tears and pain fall like blows from his mouth and strikes Lorna in the chest as she stares up at Marcos with blank and lost eyes.

"I…"

Marcos rips the dolls from her hands and flings them out of the window, and stuffing flying in all directions as he unleashed his own form of destruction in their once neat and orderly room.

"If remembering Aurora is what's holding you back from moving on, I will destroy it! Even if it hurts me that I'm removing every last thing I have of my daughter!" Marcos screams in Lorna's face, his pent up frustration and desperation blowing up in her face.

He gathers all the boxes and toys that belonged to their deceased child that littered the room, that he'd left in hopes of making Lorna feel better by showing her items from their daughter's life in the world to help her recuperate—and stuffed them into a box messily, hot tears splashing down his cheeks.

He wishes that she'd do something about it, because the old Lorna would never stand for him defying her memory of Aurora like this—but she simply sits there like she's seeing him for the first in the long time, her eyes wide, both hands holding onto the ripped stuffed bunny that tore into two as he tried to rip it from her hands—and Marcos finally gives up.

He sinks his face into his hands, ugly sobs wrenching itself from his chest and throat uncontrollably. He'd been so caught up in picking Lorna's pieces up after the aftermath of Aurora's death that he hadn't even had time to fully register and grief the loss of his child. That came crashing in like a overwhelming tidal wave as soon as he gave up trying to pick Lorna up from the rut she'd stuck herself purposefully into.

"I'll just..go." His voice cracks with defeat as he exits the room. "I'll be back for dinner later, I have a rescue mission." He notices her slight surprise, a small progress from her obliviousness the past few weeks. "Yes, Lorna, while you were moping and destroying yourself, the world kept on turning. On a axis without Aurora, but with other people in need. And you left them be."

With that, he turned and left the room, his chest burning with an unnamed emotion, and a strong reckless anger and anguish he needed to rid out of his system as quickly as possible.

….  
"Marcos!" He hears the frantic terrified calls of John as he barges in without warning as they embark on the mission, throwing all safety and caution to the wind as he charges through the car batteries like nothing and violently causes explosions everywhere with his burning hands and aching heart.

It was a mission gone wrong, but one that adhered to the current emotional state he was in—reckless and utterly out of control.

"Shut the fuck up John and just get everyone out of there." He's never delivered his words that calmly before, and a sickening sense of coldness settles in his bones as he watches Clarisse drag an injured John away. John had been invincible, to the very last moment before the Sentinel Services had shot him with a special kind of bullet that seemingly repressed the mutant gene momentarily.

Like hell Marcos was gonna lose another precious person in his life to the cruelty of the selfish world.

What did they always say about that?

No fucking way.

A almost exhilarated frenzy darts across his face as John fights between bleeding out and Clarisse's surprisingly strong grip.

"Like hell I'm letting you be a martyr! We're all going back! Everyone of us!" John knows that losing Marcos would be the last straw of sanity that would snap Lorna—and he wasn't about to let his reckless grieving friend let that happen.

Marocs nearly laughs in a scoffing way, a deprecating smile all over his face as he thinks back to the old broken toys in the box that held Aurora's items and the blank stare that Lorna always met him with.

"Nah. There's nothing back there left for me." He shoves Clarisse and John back through the portal and turns to face his mortal enemies with a almost fearless smile.

"Give me your best shot, you sick bastards." He almost feels as though Aurora's there guiding him and protecting him like a guardian angel selflessly, her presence has never been stronger in that moment—he sees her protection in every bullet he dodges, that grazed his flesh and leaves blood but no pain, and he let's lose a laugh that sends a almost depraved grin searing across his face.

 _Wham!_

The sense of invincibility is over as soon as he cuts down the bastard that put a bullet through his five year old daughter's head that night in front of a screaming Lorna, and then he stands, letting his gun and knives drop with a clatter to the ground as he makes no move to surrender, and all their lethal guns train upon him. He'd taken revenge for his child, and that was all that mattered—nothing more. Killing the bastard that tortured his daughter and then killed her liberated the sense of guilt and grief that pulled in his chest, and.. he'd had never felt so _light_.

He scoffs as the sound of thousands of guns cocking fills his ears, and he feels the cold metal eyes of the gun train themselves on his head, torso and body.

There was no way he was getting out of this alive.

 _So this is how it ends._

He thinks with a almost laughable tone in his mind.

He'd taken revenge for his daughter, and the only regret he'd be leaving behind is the husk of a love he still ardently desires.

But still.

It's one of the better days to die.

He closes his eyes with a smile, and waits for the shots to come.

….  
John's forcefully dug out the slug in his arm and torso, his fingers wrenching the bullet out brutally as he resists Caitlin's insistence.

"Marcos is out there and in danger I can't—"

"I'm sorry John. I can't let you go. You'll bleed out. You may be a mutant, but you sure hell ain't invincible. At least, not until your wounds heal." Caitlin is adamant in her diagnosis, and John sags, defeated on the gurney as she tends to his wounds, tears already welling up in his eyes. They'd lost Aurora within a few days before, and to lose Marcos next—he didn't even dare to think what would happen to their Underground leadership with Lorna emotionally crippled and Marcos dead—

"Mom?" It's Lauren that interrupts all of them at the headquarters, still reeling from Marcos' sacrifice and the new development in the mutant ability suppressing bullets shot. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but it's Lorna. She was standing right there all the time. But now she's gone." All their eyes follow the young teen's finger, and sure enough, the space where Lorna had snuck to sit and watch after they had left for their mission lay gapingly empty.

A sense of despair crept over John's entire being.

They were so dead.

….  
Marcos waited and waited, and heard the shots, but the pain never came.

"What the hell are you bastards waiting for? I killed your commander! Shoot the fuck out of me!" Frustration finally gets the better of him, and he shoots his eyes wide open, drinking in the scene of a collapsed army of thousand men, all riddled with their own lethal bullets and guns, blood smattering the floors, with a terrified but wide eyed Lorna barely a few metres away from him, her breath coming in frantic bursts and gasps, her hands lifted like a maniac over her head and away from both of them, guns whirring and spinning above each and every incapacitated personnel's head, her eyes simply drinking in the fact that he is there.

 _"Lorna_." Shock registers in his body, but doesn't prepare him for the flying tackle she throws at him, in a whirlwind of sobs and terrified tears.

"What the hell were you thinking?" He's never felt so flummoxed in his life as she yanks his collar upwards, yelling at him like the old Lorna he knows, tears she'd bottled up for days finally flying down her face. "You could've died! Do you realize that?"

"Yeah. I know that." He manages to reply stupidly, still stunned by the fact that she's here.

"Are you _crazy_? What died and made you the hero martyr?" She literally sobs into his chest, clinging to his shirt and pressing him so tightly against herself he almost melts with her warmth.

"No one. I was just…grieving." He said quietly as she cries, and her body only shakes harder in response, her tears wetting the fabric of his shirt.

"Marcos, I can't..I can't lose you. Not like that. Not after Aurora." She's almost pleading with him, and for a ridiculous moment, Marcos wanted to accuse her of being selfish. But love is a strange thing, because it twisted all his anger and selfish intentions for death to hope and understanding as soon as she wrapped her arms tightly around his, never letting go.

"I know. You won't." He promises resolutely, his hands running soothingly over her back. Lorna sniffles, then bursts into fresh tears at his capacity of understanding.

"I'm sorry!" She weeps into his arms, face wetting his chest, apologising for everything she'd put him through, and Marcos wraps his arms around her securely with a sigh. "I'm so _so_ sorry!"

"It's okay." Marcos exhales, letting stray tears fall from his eyes as he holds her, lifting his face to the sky. "I understand."

 _ **I really hope I captured the essence of Lorna's breakdown as well as Marcos' breakdown well enough. I actually felt this was much better written as compared to Breathe, and I don't really know why xD I tend to have an inclination towards mental problems and breakdown fics and writing them really well, because I dangerously connect with my characters on a sublime and deeper emotional level.**_

 _ **Its dangerous, but somehow I love it.**_


	31. Sleepless Nights

_**A/N: These prompts were taken from a reblog I saw from quintessentiallygifted ehehe. This isn't the fic that has been betaed, so there's still quite a lot of things that I'm not satisfied with. Sigh. To be honest, all the angst from Eclaris has riddled me with the lack of will to write in the weeks I was watching the show, so I've rusted in my writing skills. (_**_ _ **_|||) But I hope everyone enjoys this!**_

 _ **Comment down below any thoughts :3 Constructive feedback is always appreciated**_

 _ **5\. I can't sleep, can I sleep here?**_

 _ **1\. Stay here tonight.**_

 _ **8\. Please don't be mad at me**_

Its been 84 days and counting since Lorna and Andy had left the Mutant Underground to be part of the HellFire Club. ( _Not that he'd been counting the days since they left. No sir, no. It was- just that there was a calendar in the motel he stayed in,right in front of his bed. He wasn't counting. Not at all._ ) Or whatever they'd liked to call it in their so called righteous pursuit of Justice.

A seed of bitterness bubbled deep in his Marco's chest, and he scoffed, trying hard to quash the bitter anger that swelled into tears back into his chest.

The bitterness that was left swirling in his chest soon turned into a boiling rage as his hands grazed over the chest of items that belonged to Lorna-he didn't know why he'd kept keeping them when she'd simply taken everything from him and just left.

 _My baby._ The hardened tone that she'd taken in their last confrontation haunted him like the Ghost of the Christmas Yet to Come.

His chest ached as he recalled the sudden flash of indecision and reluctance that had raced across her face fleetingly when he corrected her.

The box of metallic items crashes with an angry swipe, scattering everything in the ground, including that stupid red medallion that Lorna had been given in her thirteenth birthday by her birth father.

His eyes reddened, and his teeth clenched as he picked up the medallion from the floor, hands burning with the thought of melting the red thing till there was nothing left, scrutinizing the offensive object with sharp eyes and a broken heart.

He grunts, cheeks flaming with anger, before he hurls the medallion with all his worth, flinching slightly as the motel window shatters, his body relaxing as soon as the vexing medallion is hurled out of sight and out of mind.

* * *

"I guess this isn't a good time for me to appear." Every muscle in Marcos' body freezes as the red medallion floats in the middle of the cold night air, and Lorna's face floats into view from the shattered window, a wane smile gracing her face, deep dark eye bags betraying her current emotional state. Marcos doesn't know if he's more torn between worry at seeing her climbing up to the fourth story motel window while pregnant, or just swelling with so much relief and love in his heart at just seeing her face one more time.

It soon fades though, any trace of longing and worry, when he sees the tell tale glow of her powers lifting and balancing her well enough for her to fly as she hovered just outside the window.

Marcos stares at her, throat dry and chest aching as she flies into his room like an angel, dressed in a thin camisole and shorts like she'd just got out of bed, her camisole almost not able to cover the swell of her belly that she had where their baby lay.

"What are you doing here, Lorna?" It isn't the right thing to say at all, and they both know it, the cold hard words that fall from Marcos mouth causing both of them to instinctively flinch. "Don't they give you a proper accommodation in your majestic club?" It's almost mocking, and Lorna whips around, fired up enough to defend the club she's helping to rebuild.

"Forget it." He backs away from their impending confrontation like the coward he truly is when it comes to confronting Lorna with the raw wound that Festers in his heart.

"Just leave quietly and I won't tell anyone you were here." He turns his back towards her, refusing for even a single selfish second to turn and bask his eyes in her.

She was glowing. According to Caitlin, pregnant women with prenatal glow meant that everything was fine. That both mother and child we're healthy. It had to be. Marcos felt his throat close up as Lorna's fingers graze her stomach fleetingly.

There were so many things he must have missed.

His fists clenched agonisingly.

"Marcos. You need to understand. Please." The anger he keeps tempered well enough in his veins boils up to the surface as soon as she begins her pleas for that lowly terrorist group she was willing to sacrifice everything for- but not even consider staying back and being a family with him. "Please..don't be mad at me." There's something so desperately broken and fragile to her voice that he automatically turns to face her, his hands reaching instinctively for her face, eyes taking in her hands wrapped tightly about her body, tears shining as bright as diamonds in those hazel green eyes he so loved. " I wanted to keep our family safe. It was something that had to be done." Her chin thrust out like a mule, and Marcos nearly laughs with exasperation.

 _Did she really think that that kind of reasoning would satisfy the broken relationships she left behind?_

There's a low moment of silence that strains between them, thick and all consuming, as Marcos simply stares at her, eyes flat, lips taut in a straight line and hands fallen back to his side.

"You always say that." It's an excuse that he can't accept, will not accept, because as much as he understands her motives behind that destruction of the plane-to accept that moral change was for him to fall back into where he used to be, what he used to be, when he was back with the cartel.

He'd changed since then.

For _Lorna_ , for their _baby_ , for a better man for himself.

For the belief that Lorna always held highly of him that he was better than the actions he used to do. He wasn't gonna throw that away anytime soon.

His heart clenched in his chest as Lorna sniffled lightly. He hated seeing her so emotionally fragile like this, because he could never reject her when she needed him most.

"Let me ask again, Lorna. What. Are you doing here?" His voice is quiet, but firm, the flat tone he used like arrows that would skewer through both of their flesh and hearts.

"I just...I can't sleep back there. In that club. Can I sleep here?" The reason and question rushes from Lorna's chest like a badly timed answer. Marcos nearly scoffs at the irony of the situation.

 _Did she expect a smooth bed rest after killing so many lives? After leaving behind so many shattered hearts close to her own?_

"You can't sleep. That's why you came here?" The bitterness in his tone was painfully apparent.

"You know what? Forget it." Lorna's hurt but angry voice sounded loudly behind him. "It's painfully obvious you don't want me here."

 _That's not the reason._

Marcos' mouth dried as his fist clenched, the bad taste in his mouth making him wince.

 _I'm just..._

" _Wait_." The sound of her boots clicking on the edge of his windowsill makes him blurt out the words to stop her before his mind ever processed it. She turns, and the hope flashing deep in her hazel eyes is enough to make him fidget uncomfortably. "You can stay. "He grimaces awkwardly. "Just for tonight."

His rumpled bed is a shoddy and sad excuse for whatever royal accommodations he knew the Hellfire Club has prepared for her, but the smile spreading across Lorna's face has never been that bright before at his invitation. The corners of his lips quirk instinctively at her smile, and the tension leaves his shoulder with relative ease.

"Just for tonight." She echoes back his words, a promise of a hopeless cause, because just as they both know she will leave this place before the first light, she will be back again in the night, both of them clambering under the covers and seeking each other's familiar comfort and warmth, despite all that promises of it being a one time thing.

The grey covers that were drab and wrinkly moments before slide over Lorna's pale contrasting skin as smooth as silk in Marcos' eyes, and a sigh of contentment finds both their lips just as Lorna curls her lithe frame familiarly to his on his muscled front.

His fingers find familiar purchase in the green silk of her hair, her warm minty scent curling and tickling his nostrils as he inhales deeply the smell that's entirely Lorna. She does the same for him, her own nose buried in the crook of his neck. He smells like cinnamon and marshmallows, with a tinge of a spiced edge, reminiscent of his explosive potential. It's a smell that calls back warm and fuzzy memories to both of them, of better days, and of days to come. They both firmly believe that. Lorna's finger tighten around his chest, both of them unable to fully meld against each other like usual due to the burgeoning bump now between them. The bump is solid and warm against the palm of Marcos' hand, and Lorna's own breath stutters as he simply smooths the pads of his thumbs gently over the skin of her stomach, lighting trails of warmth on the cold exposed skin of her belly.

"It's been kicking me. A lot." It's a secret she shares shamefully, her hand tentatively clasping over his, the wordless apology apparent in her greenish eyes. "I think she missed you."

"You sure that isn't all you?" A faint smirk is reminiscent of the old, smug Marcos , gracing his face just as Lorna huffs out a laugh and smacks his chest.

"Keep wishing, Diaz." A small shy smile touches those lips of hers. "I did miss you. But just some."

"Oh. Just _some_." He let's her face flood with colour at his teasing jab, chuckling just enough to get her riled enough to kick him lightly in the sternum.

"Just some." Lorna buries her face in his chest and squeezes lightly, letting him gloat. He smiles widely at her admission, palming her cold belly with his warm hands.

"Ow." He snaps to attention just as she winces, hand darting to the place where his hand had been moments before. "She heard you. You've got her all excited."

Her thin hand slowly guides his to the spot with a slight smirk.

"Right?" Marcos' breath stills as a resounding thump thrums through his palm at her question, as though in agreement with Lorna's assumption. "Say hi to Daddy, pumpkin."

A flurry of excited kicks thump rapidly against his hand, precisely where his palm studiously lay. Lorna shifts slightly with the discomfort, looking up to his face. "She's saying hi to you." His dark eyes dart towards Lorna's as he swallows, throat too tight to talk.

Instead, he sends two bursts of warm energy from his palms right to the spot where their baby had made its presence known.

"She's all awake now." Lorna's voice is like a soft quiet balm to his quickening heart. "She's kicking all over the place." He doesn't need her to tell him what their baby is doing-he can feel it everywhere, each nudge and somersault, the pushes that are almost frantic against his palms, as though trying to strain out to reach him.

Marcos turns his eyes up towards Lorna's his chest tight. It was as though their baby was trying to send a message to both of them.

" _Stay_." He croaks, hands tight against her swelling belly, heart hammering in his chest. "She's telling you to _stay_. With _me._ "

A dark look passes through Lorna's eyes.

"You know I can't." Her lips gently graze his cheek. "You know _why_ I can't."

"I don't care. She needs us. _I_ need you." He barely manages to choke out, hands crumpling the sides of her camisole. "Your place is here. So stay." He insists.

She only gives him a sad smile, cupping his face with gentle hands.

"We should Sleep." The gentle touch of her hands lulls him into an easy sleep that he tries hard to fight, hands still tightly clenched around her frame, nose filled with her scent. But its been too long since he's had a good night's rest, and his tired eyes surrender to long awaited sleep, the welcoming darkness overtaking his consciousness.

Lorna's gone by the first light of the morning.

Marcos wakes to a cold empty bed, hands empty, the scent of Lorna still thick within the sheets, and around him. There are fresh sprigs of Azaleas pressed onto the pillow next to his, cupped in the bed's indentations of her sleeping body, the fresh dew of the early morning still glistening on it's petal tips.

He gently cups them, tears spilling over his eyes, and smiles.

 _ **A/N: In case no one knows, the Azalea Flower is a symbol of femininity and softness, and is a flower that is given to a loved one. Its flower language is to ask the loved one the Azalea Flower is given to to take good care of themselves for the sake of their partners. I thought it was a meaningful flower for Lorna to give to Marcos, since they ended up on opposite sides.**_

 _ **eclipsepolarisxauroraborealis themutantunderground btahmisyan thegiftedpredictions dairdevil countryole**_

 _ **Anyway, if anyone is interested in helping me beta my fics in the future, do tell me!**_

 _ **For now, I shall go back to writing...or trying to write..whichever comes first （￣**_ _ **ε￣）**_


	32. Catharsis

_**A/N: Alright. I'd like to thank themutantunderground and blink-when-it-thunders for betaing this one shot Catharsis for me :3 I was terribly unsure of the ending itself, and didn't know what things to cut or leave. Anyway, all the thanks to the prompts from the reblog of quintessentiallygifted , which gave me the right inspiration from the word prompts I saw. (I even screenshot the post in my phone xD And I look through all 100 of them everyday to see which prompts stand out as inspirations before I form the prompt idea in my brain lol)**_

 _ **Now, a good warning ahead of time. A whole load of angst, and well..you guys would probably be able to guess what else from the compilation of word prompts I chose how this one shot will go.**_

 _ **Enjoy and Comment/Review!**_

 _ **61\. We need to talk.**_

 _ **58\. I made a mistake.**_

 _ **36\. I think I'm in trouble.**_

 _ **79\. I don't feel well.**_

 _ **19\. Just breathe, okay?**_

 _ **91\. I can't breathe.**_

 _ **54\. Talk to me.**_

 _ **82\. I'm on my way.**_

 _ **85\. I need to tell you something.**_

 _ **100\. I love you**_

He calls her in the middle of a Hellfire Club meeting, at the most inopportune time possible.

She's been arguing with the snotty higher brass about the direction they wanted to take the Hellfire Club, and is pissed, because she can't believe he's managed to wheedle out her newest phone number from Sage ( _somehow, because she's been keeping tabs on him through Sage._ ).

So she snaps at him as soon as she picks up the phone, the embarrassingly loud ringtone bouncing off the walls of the whitewashed meeting room, the bright phone screen flashing the old nickname and his current number she couldn't bear to discard even after she left.

Their little girl has been keeping her up all night with her demands to see her father, her nights ending with scream fests from a five year old who has nothing but a old photo she printed out for Aurora to keep as a keepsake of her father at her daughter's demand.

"What?" She snaps, regrets almost immediately, her harsh tone, because he's done almost nothing to deserve it.

"We need to talk."

All her guilt at snapping at him rushes away as soon as he opens his mouth, and those words spill from his lips.

Lorna heaves a deep breath.

"Can't it wait? I'm in the middle of something important here."

"Yeah, uh, about that. Nope. I don't think it can wait." He sounds off. No, just wrong, and Lorna can't put a finger on it. "Lorna, I think I made a mistake."

" _What?_ " Her stomach drops into a pit, because she suddenly hears his heavy breathing, laboured and tense, as though he's hurt.

"Uh, I think I'm in trouble." He coughs, and she hears him curse slurrily, a suppressed groan barely transmitting over the line. Just barely. "I..don't feel well. And um, there's a lot of glowing blood." Her fingers tremble as they clutch the phone, almost crushing it in her tight grip.

"Just breathe okay?" She's panicking inside, and it shows in her wide eyes, because suddenly Sage flies to the computer and starts hacking into the Mutant Underground servers that they've hooked to an open line.

"Yeah about that." He draws another wheezing breath. " _Can't breathe_." There's a shuffle and clatter of objects as Marcos curses lowly over the line, his slurring lisp becoming more pronounced by the minute. There are shouts of other human voices over the line, and Lorna fights the urge to choose a direction and just run blindly, hoping to reach him.

"I found them. They're being targeted by Hounds." Sage's urgent voice is loud in her ear.

"Is that Sage?" He slurs at her over the line.

"Yeah. Yes. Um _yes_." She's suddenly frightened and at a loss of what to say. This couldn't be happening. She'd left them for exactly the reason to prevent something like this from ever happening. To prevent herself from losing him to those anti-mutant regenades that hunted their kind.

Her eyes burn, and her fingers slide away wet at the corners. She's shaking, but her voice is nothing but strong and firm.

The line falls silent for a while, and her heart trips, her hysterics threatening to rise to the surface as she fails to hear the comforting rough pained breaths of his over the line.

"Talk to me!" It's a desperate demand, and the barest thread of her hysterical fear slides through her words. "Marcos!"

 _"Hmm?_ " He's always been compelled to answer her when she needed him, and he slurs out a low affirmative response. Lorna almost imagines him, down on the floor, encircled by a spreading pool of glowing blood, his lashes fluttering close as the pool of blood expands. That image horrifies her, because there's no way she was ever, ever gonna let that happen.

She glares at Esme. _Why weren't they sending some members of their team to help rescue their fellow mutants? Was she so incapable as to wait for every instruction to fall from her own lips?_ Lorna gritted her teeth angrily.

"Aurora's been asking to see you, you know?" Her voice betrays a tiny tremble, and she shakes slightly. "She has a photo of you, and she's been screaming at me to let her meet you." A low watery chuckle flutters over the line.

"Really?"

" _Really._ " She almost whispers, tears burning in her eyes. "I was thinking..uh, thinking about letting her meet you this Saturday." She makes up a wild decision last minute, grasping at ends of straws just to make a conversation with him, to keep him awake longer, until they could get a team and reach him.

"Sounds good." He mumbles into the phone. "If I can make it of course."

"What are you talking about? Of course you can." They both know what he's talking about, but Lorna refuses to consider it, no, she can't consider it, because losing him might just break her beyond repair.

"Hmm." He hums, too tired to give her a snarky response that she knows must be on the tip of his tongue.

"We've got the team ready. They're ready to get there. Five minutes tops." Sage reports back to her, eyes flashing, and Lorna strips her jacket from her shoulders, ignoring the meeting to stride out of the doors after Sage.

It's a given that she's coming with them, no questions asked.

"Hey. I need to tell you something." Relief fills her chest as she hears him shift slightly, breathing deep into the phone. His voice is thick with tears and emotion, and she grits her teeth.

"No, you can tell me when I get there. Yourself." Her voice is almost hysterical. She can sense him slipping from the edges, barely holding on. " _I'm not listening to you!_ " She doesn't care that the rest of the team are shooting her curious and odd glares at her rare display of explosive emotion.

"Can you tell this to 'Rora for me?"

"You can tell her yourself!" She's nearly screaming into the phone, trying to stop him from saying those last few words and slipping away. "You just need to hold on, you hear me? I'm on my way!"

Marcos inhales slightly, a bubble of soft laughter rising from his chest.

"That's good to know." She doesn't need to be there to know he's holding the phone close to his chest-she can hear the pounding of his heartbeat vibrating through the phone. " _I love you._ "

There's a loud crash and whirring of mobile machinery that transmits over the line-and Lorna _screams_ and _screams_ and _**screams**_ -till there's nothing left responding over the line to her voice but loud buzzing static, and the lack of the sound of his heartbeat.

...  
The funeral held for him is silent, simple, and tight knit.

No one questions the presence of the HellFire Club at the wake, and her daughter refuses to talk or even look at her throughout the funeral. Aurora simply sits on the chair next to the casket, her knees tucked to her chin as she stares wordlessly at the body lying in the casket, far too tearless, silent for a five year old who lost a father, and far too solemn for a child her age.

There's nothing but a gaping hole in Lorna's chest as she gazes at her daughter, her eyes just staring emptily at the casket and the body. It aches, but she's Lorna Dane, and _Lorna Dane_ no longer cried for a simple ( _life-shattering_ ) loss of a loved one.

No.

She'd bigger things that she needed must complete. Especially after this.

Marcos had been out getting supplies for the Underground when he'd been ambushed by two teams of Sentinel Services, eight evolving Sentinel Machineries and two sets of Hounds that prevented his escape. All for one man. Just because he was a mutant, and that he had relations to her. ( _ **That**_ _was your fault_ )

The attack had been planned, targeted, and they all had been far too careless, too caught up with their differences to note the impending danger. ( _Your fault)_

And because of that, he was gone, and her daughter was robbed of a loving father she'd never met. ( _ **All**_ _your fault_ )

Lorna's hands clenched as she patted Aurora's shoulders. They'd overstayed their welcome with the Mutant Underground by attending the wake. It was time to leave. For a moment, her daughter's angry eyes meet her own, similarly coloured and flashing with surging disobedience that Lorna thought she would flare and throw a tantrum to stay, but the little five year old simply slips off the chair to stand next to her. She holds out a hand gently, waiting for Aurora to place that small too warm hand in her own, and is startled when her daughter glances down at the offered hand, before sprinting off in the direction of the van, her offered hand foolishly held out in the cold open air.

Lorna sighed lightly, eyes catching John's sad ones, before leaving.

...  
"Aurora..." Her daughter's door slams right in her face as she follows her little girl with quick rapid footsteps.

She inhales a deep breath, and knocks, entirely out of politeness.

"Go away." Her little girl's voice is muffled.

"Aurora.."

"I hate you! Hate you ! Hate you! _Hate you!_ It's all your fault!" The sudden burst of loud screaming from behind Aurora's door sends a punch to Lorna's gut. ( _ **Told**_ _you, all_ _ **your**_ _fault)_

Tears well in her eyes. She's hurting too, couldn't her daughter see? She loved Marcos too.

"I'm sorry." Her voice with choked with emotion. "He wanted to say something to you. He told me to tell you when he was on the phone." Aurora's quiet now, and Lorna feels the electrical energy belonging to her daughter plastered to the door, so close and yet so far. "He said, Tell Aurora _'I love you.'_ " The words were whispered loud enough for her daughter to hear, Lorna's own hands pressed tightly against the door.

There's a silent beat as the words sink in.

Then her own tears fall as Aurora bursts into tears.

…

Life goes on after that.

It has to. They never had a choice about that.

Lorna picks herself up, and so does Aurora, though everyone can tell that gaping space that lies in their hearts. Their smiles are never the same.

Aurora spends most of her time beside that small box of recordings that John gave her back at the wake. They used to record back in the good old days. Playing the old cheesy songs that were Marcos' favourite, hearing him belt out alongside Lorna's own soft soprano,the strains of music on repeat.

Her daughter joins their fight far too young, at the age of ten, despite Lorna's own protests, her sword sharpened by years of training and a well cultivated hate of losing a loved one far too young.

She's inherited her father's love and talent for art, and her walls are decorated with pictures she's taken, paintings and drawings made by her own hand.

Her masterpiece hangs in their hallway, a grey pencilled drawing of a deep pit, filled with hands reaching upwards for a light they could never reach. It's a work in progress, because it's a art piece that will never finish till their war finishes. Countless hands with small printed names in her daughter's handwriting reach up in that picture, detailed to the horrifying point of the recognizable scars on Lorna's own hands, from a fight that almost went wrong, Fade's own hands, half hazy just like his invisibility, and Sage's hands, toughened with the calluses.

Lorna's eyes always looks for one, right in the centre, dark, glowing and blazing, full of Hope that Marcos always held to when he was alive.

Everyone's hands were there, all those that fought and were fighting this war between mutants and humans. She recognised John's and Clarisse's twined hands, joined in a fervent clasp amidst all the countless hands that reached upwards to the circle of light. _Andy. Lauren. Reed. Caitlin. Carmen._ Her stomach drops as she sees a pair of hands that do not belong, large, male, with a SS tag twined around his fingers. _SS Services. Jace Turner._ Her daughter's neat print flowered at the side of the drawing of his hands.

Footsteps echo in their hallway, and Lorna recognises the familiar footfalls of her ten year old daughter that just finished her first mission.

She stays silent as she sees the reddened circles under her daughter's eyes, and the tremble of Aurora's fingers, stained with blood. Aurora steps forward slightly, her hands shaking, before she adds another pair of hands to the deep pit.

They're pale, small, and delicate, fingers slightly callused with the regular gripping of a sword, with small splatters of blood patterning on the wrist and fingers-residues of taking a life, hands that were younger, far _far_ younger than most hands reaching up in the dark pit. The pencil that her daughter holds stops, and both of them glance at each other slightly.

The pencil flickers between her daughter's fingers, and she feeds another name to the pit.

 _Aurora._  
~~~~

 _ **eclipsepolarisxauroraborealis themutantunderground btahmisyan thegiftedpredictions dairdevil countryole**_

 _ **behappyitsemmalie This was the one shot I wanted reviewed and betaed xD But by the time you replied it was already betaed xD Well, if you have any comments or feedback, I'd be really glad to hear it :)**_

 _ **Comment! Review! xD**_


	33. A Place To Call Home

_**A/N: Another prompt thanks to quintessentiallygifted , who also betaed this for me :D Also not forgetting the wonderful behappyitsemmalie , who betaed half of the shot before life called her away xD and themutantunderground who bludgeoned through my atrocious piece of work, full of mistakes and errors and still complimented me. Hoho, you guys make my day and make me cringe from all my mistakes all the same.**_

 _ **Prompt Premise:**_

 _ **Our beloved mutants live in a dystopian like reality, or world, instead of the normal tv series premise my one shots are set in.**_

 _ **To make it simple, they live in an area named The Slum, where all mutants and humans live together, without much difference, the only bigotry dividing them being where and who they're born to. The Easters, people who live in the East End of the Slum, are those with coloured races , Mexicans, Spanish, Asians, Jewish, Germans, or Sokovians, in the case of the Lensherr/Maximoff family, while those in the West tended to be those of white or Aryan kind of heritage, blonde haired, blue or dark eyed, without an ounce of mixed blood in their veins. [I apologise if I offend anyone, but I'm trying my best to explain how it looks like in my head T_T] And as how bigotry and discrimination happens in our reality, anyone with a mixed blooded heritage is mocked and ridiculed, as well as bullied. They are deemed as the abominations of society and aren't accepted, especially if they carry characteristics that stand them apart from those they stay with.**_

 _ **With that, I hope the premise makes it a tad easier to understand this hastily drawn up world from my trash of a brain [hehe]**_

 _ **And...enjoy! Comment and Review what you all might think!**_

 _ **21\. "Who hurt you?"**_

 _ **28\. "I won't let anything bad happen to you."**_

 _ **40\. "Just go away!"**_

 _ **50\. "Everything is fine."**_

He first notices her because she's pretty, despite being small for her age and also because that her bright green hair glows in the sun.

But Marcos didn't dare to try to get close to the little girl despite living on opposite sides of the place they call home.

You see, they live in a place called The Slum, where living spaces were divided into two different sections; the East and the West. The people living in either sector never got along with each other. Now, the Westers were supposed to stick to the West sides, and the Easters, the east. But somehow, her family was made up of both Easters and Westers. Lorna's mother ( _he'd learnt that that was her name_ ) was a Wester, her Father, an Easter, and mixed blood like her meant that she was a taboo, and that often made her the target for bullies to push around.

The boys would pick on her green hair, her pale skin, and the light smattering of freckles that were sometimes there and sometimes weren't. This made her different from the Easters.

Her half sister had dark hair and olive skin with freckles that bore the resemblance of a Easter, but that girl, _Lorna_ , resembled more of a Wester than a Easter like them.

It was said her mother left her at the doorstep of the Lensherr family, the girl's resemblance in powers and features too strong to deny the unfaithfulness of the father who already had two children through Magda. But Magda was kind, and so she took Lorna in, treating her like her own. The same could be said for the Maximoff twins too. Marcos had seen them defend their baby sister countless times from bullies, but when they weren't around, Lorna was always, always pushed around by the others.

She was strong though, in many ways that he wasn't, because he'd seen her push back at a boy kicking her and punching him in the face. ( _She gets a swollen black eye for retaliating, of course, and the boy that punched her gets violently hung by her sister upside down for an entire day, because Wanda is psychic enough to know without Lorna telling her who touches her little sister without her permission and metes out punishment in equal amounts of violence._ )

He's kinda scared of her family, because he never had one of his own. Wanda and Pietro are fiercely protective over the five year old, and to be honest, he was kinda scared of them, despite his proficiency in brawling. ( _The twins were a force to be reckoned with when angered_ )

So he just stalks her.

* * *

Well, not really _stalk_ her. That would be odd.

He just…follows her, wherever she goes.

Like…a guardian angel! Just that, this guardian angel never appeared when she needed help.

She definitely knows he's following her, because he's seen the small baskets of food she leaves at corners where he sits, for him to eat during the odd hours of the day.

That year, she was five and he was seven, and they've never officially seen each other face to face, but they both instinctively know that the other's there.

…  
It's only when he's thirteen and she's eleven that he finally has the courage to step up to the older boys and defend her.

It comes entirely by accident, and Marcos swears that he nearly peed his pants standing up to the boys three times his size, but the smile she sends his way made it all worth it.

He's become known as the Wester lover, or the Taboo lover, but Marcos finds that he doesn't care.

Nothing is more important to him than the smile that's on her face.

He holds out his hand to help her out, and she takes it with a shy grin. Her hand is warm and small in his, and his cheeks heat as she plants a kiss on his cheek and flounces off, a spring in her footsteps and laughter ringing through the air.

He touches the burning spot on his cheek later, eyes wide, and a silly grin painted on his face.

He likes her, he decides that day.

Because she's cute.

He gets a hard thrashing from Carmen's father later on, and a smack on his face by Carmen herself, for defending the little mixed blood bitch that was on their land.

He thinks that Carmen and her father are just bloody cowards, because they can't do anything to evacuate Magda and her twins, so they choose to bully a eleven year old instead.

….  
He finally snaps when she's sixteen and he's eighteen, and Carmen's dating him because she said she was.

All he did was wave at her from a distance with a smile on his face, chest a little too tight and in slight pain from Carmen digging her nails into his ribs in a hug she uses to distract him from looking in her direction.

He ignores Carmen entirely and she snaps, screaming expletives at him in their native Spanish and storming away. Lorna chuckles at their lovers spat and he sheepishly scratched the back of his head as he grins alongside her, both of them still too shy and guarded to speak to each other.

He knows that she's due to the port at midnight, because she's secretly working to help Magda earn some money. She'd been doing that for years since she turned ten, and he's followed her protectively at a distance Everytime she leaves. So when Lorna doesn't turn up at midnight at the Port where she regularly works to help shift the metal fixtures with the older men, Marcos instinctively knows that something's very wrong.

He definitely saw her leave the house at the same time as usual, so why wasn't she here at the dock? He'd taken a short cut after gathering his courage to finally surprise her and talk to her face to face.

Dread shivers down his back and his feet pound the softening mud as he sprints immediately in the direction of the closest warehouse. It belongs to the Guerra family, and Lorna always has to cross it in order to reach the docks quickly.

With the screaming fit that Carmen had put up in the afternoon with a simple wave, there was no doubt in Marcos' mind that she would try to attack Lorna from an angle she ( _or he_ ) wouldn't ever see coming.

He slips from the roof he's on, and tumbles just in time to catch his fall, the rain thick in his face and his teeth bared into the ugliest snarl at the thought of Carmen laying her hands on _Lorna_.

 _Please._

His feet sting from the broken glass he'd shattered from his fall off the roof, glowing blood leaking from the cuts on his skin.

 _Make it in time._

….  
He _is_ in time, but only because Carmen decided that she wanted to torture him by making him see the things she wanted to do to the girl he liked.

Lorna's tied up, and hung by ropes in the most debauched way ever possible surrounded by at least thirty men—and for the first time in his life Marcos' feels his blood boil.

He's tolerated everything that Carmen has thrown his way, be it her annoying power hungry father, be it her unrequited affections for him and her scathing remarks of Lorna, but this, was simply way too far.

Something snaps deep inside him, and he sees Carmen and Lorna's eyes widen as he roars in anger. Lorna's face is swollen on one side, the visible heavy handprint of a slap on her face.

 _Who was it?_

His eyes darted around ferally.

"Who hurt you?" It's the first time he speaks to her, and his voice is almost animalistic, crazed with anger and fury.

She swallows, and shakes her head.

"Just go away. Everything is fine." He shrieks a furious snarl at Lorna's denial, and his eyes search over the crowd again, finding the handprint that's too big and heavy to be Carmen's.

He finds it, in a stock male four times his size, imposing and muscular in every way, his right hand still quivering from the force he exerted in the slap he gave to Lorna's face.

 _That one dies._

The triumphant smile on his face is eerily jarring, and Carmen shrieks as he rushes forward and grabs the man's arm.

The man grunts in effort, trying to pull his arm from Marcos' grip, but he's just too strong—after all, Marcos had spent years training and training, just to be strong enough to protect Lorna.

"Did you touch her?" He can't even recognise his own voice. It's cold, and calculative, and a part of him is fearful of it. The man shakes his head pitifully for a man four times his size.

" _Liar._ " His fingers dig into the man's arm with a loud crunch, and a howl of agony bursts from the male's lips.

He's entirely broken the male's arm, neatly, in three places.

Marcos contemplates ripping the arm off and burning it, but his eyes meet Lorna's fearful ones and he stops.

"Marcos!" Carmen's frightened of this side of him, but thrilled all at the same time. "Stop this right now!" He regards her with cold eyes.

"No." The word spills from his lips, and he flicks out his pocket knife, slicing the ropes that hold Lorna hostage. Her ankles lay in funny angles. It looks like they were broken too. Marcos runs his fingers lightly over her swollen feet. They must have smashed her feet to stop her from being able to run.

 _Very well._

He stands, cracking his neck and knuckles.

Crippling them should be the penance the deserved for doing this, shouldn't it?

Carmen's shaking like a leaf by the time he's through with the last of the men that she's brought to torture Lorna. She never sees this side of him—he's only reserved it strictly for business, and for when her father needed Marcos to do his dirty work for him. Thirty men, all larger than him, on the floor, legs broken brutally and ankle tendons slashed. If they weren't crippled permanently, they would probably have difficulty walking for the rest of their lives.

Carmen squeaks as he strides past her, too focused on a wide eyed Lorna to care.

"Are you afraid?" He stoops down to her level, face splattered with the blood of his enemies, a bloodied knife still in his hand.

She chuckles, then smiles like the brightest light in the sky.

"No. Because you're kind." She cups his face with one hand, tenderly wiping away the bloodstains on his cheek. "I always knew you were strong inside."

He finds this hilarious, because all he's done in front of her is to hide and stalk her.

She giggles as a flurry of emotions rush across his face.

"We all have a dark side." She Pats his hand lightly. "Don't worry." He's a bit flummoxed at her words.

"Then why didn't you fight back?"

She shrugs almost offhandedly.

"Well, they took me by surprise." The next answer she gives stuns him right to his core. "And because I know you'd always come to me." He blinks in surprise at her trust. "Because you've always been there when I needed you the most."

Lorna's earliest memory of him isn't the one of him standing in front of the boys that bullied her, arms wide open like a eagle, taking punch after punch to his face for defending her.

 _No._

It's of the shy little boy that peeked around the corner the first time she came and the stunned look of adoration that steals over his features, before he blinks, then smiles widely at her.

She'd just been left at the doorstep of Magda's house then, disillusioned by the harsh world at only five years of age, by her Mother and stepdad, and she's uncomfortable in this alien place.

His is the first smile she sees, full of adoration and shyness, pure and honest, and she likes it. It makes her feel warm and fuzzy on the inside, and it helps her cope with the days that the guilt starts cropping up when she doesn't see Magda, but hears her cry over her husband's infidelity. Back in those days when the twins hadn't warmed up to her. _Yet._

It's the memory of his smile she clings to when she wants to be strong, because it gives her the desire, the will to fight and live up to the adoration he places on her. It's because of his smile that she manages to worm her way to Magda's heart, because one day she finally finds the courage to sneak out of bed and wrap her arms around a crying Magda and whisper that she's sorry. ( _Magda cries even harder after her apology, and plants a kiss on her cheek, rocking her lightly.)_

It's because of him that she manages to impress Wanda and Pietro, because she fights Pietro on the floor of their shared bedroom right after he makes Wanda cry. Now Wanda shares her bed with her when she gets frightened of thunderstorms during the night ( _it's her dirty little secret that she needs cuddles_ ), and has become protective of her outside because of that, because she's fought enough for her at home. Pietro becomes protective over her too, because he's taken to her like a older brother, and his idea of younger siblings mean to him that he's the only one that can bully her.

The doors to the warehouse screech, then cave, and Lorna sighed as the metal gave underneath the pressurizing rage of a familiar reddish energy belonging to her half sister.

Carmen shrieks as the the doors blow entirely off their hinges, and Lorna's eyes nearly flutter close with relief. as She feels the familiar whoosh of breeze that is her brother, and Wanda's raged shrieks at her dismal condition before gathering her into her warm arms. Pietro's cool hand soothes her throbbing cheek and she realises that Marcos has left her side.

"I'm gonna kill those that did this." She's badly concussed enough to be seeing double of her siblings, but Pietro's words jerks her out of her reverie.

"Yeah, Marcos beat you to that already." She slurs. The surprise is clear on her siblings' faces, because Lorna's confided to them about the Marcos issue before, and they both know him as the boy that likes their sister, but never takes action.

"Lover boy?" Her overactive brother questions with surprise. "Hm." Marcos suddenly feels shy at the taller boy's open scrutiny. "Interesting. Well done!" He's more than surprised when Pietro claps him on the shoulder, and chokes on his spit when the older twin leans in and whispers that he support him chasing after his younger sister.

"But just so you know, if you hurt her, I'll make sure you hurt twice as bad." Pietro pats his shoulder reassuringly and Marcos shivers. He's seen the older Maximoff twin at work. And boy was he scary.

He sheepishly laughs to cover up for himself, and shrinks slightly into the shadows as Wanda fusses over her half sister.

It looked like he wasn't needed here.

Not anymore, at the very least.

"Well? What are you doing?" He freezes as Wanda Maximoff's annoyed and mildly irritated voice sounds close behind him, sending sparking shivers down his spine. "I can't be the one that carries her. Lorn's too heavy for me." Lorna's too tired to pinch her sister for trying to push Marcos and her together ( _she sees the cheeky wink Wanda shoots her, because Wanda is more than capable carrying her with her powers_ ), and tries to control the heated flush that rushes over her cheeks as Marcos bows his head and pulls her into his arms, not even sparing a glance at her face.

"I look that bad huh." She slurs through her concussion, hooking her arms around his neck to stop her throbbing head from bouncing with every step. He's so tense with their close proximity she could practically feel it radiating off his bones. "Hey. It's not everyday that you get to hold me like this and not get slugged."

Marcos can't believe that she's making jokes in spite of her dismal condition, but that's what makes Lorna, Lorna and he huffs a laugh right in her face.

"It's not everyday that crushes get to hold each other." Wanda sing songs right beside them, causing both of them to flush horribly. Lorna kicks feebly in Wanda's direction, glaring at her through woozy eyes and pink tinted cheeks. "Har har." She can't stop grinning as she rests her head against Marcos' shoulder and snuggles—he's so surprised by her actions that he jerks to a stop, before looking down sheepishly and resuming his walk.

"Come on people! You're _slow_!" Lorna groans as Pietro's voice floats from far ahead of both of them.

"Sometimes I forget how annoying he is."

"I thought he was more _scary_." Marcos' words cause Lorna and Wanda to glance at each other, before bursting into laughter.

"Oh boy, that's new. Pietro being scary."

"What?" Lorna grins as he flushes, before shaking her head as her sister sprints towards their looming house, hot on Pietro's heels.

"Lorna!" Magda's almost running out of the house, her horrified cry at her adopted daughter's wounds turning into one of rage as she sees Marcos.

"Aren't you one of Guerra's men? Get your hands off my daughter! Pietro! Wanda!" Marcos stands before this fiery red headed woman, bristling in defense of the girl snug in his arms.

"No I–ah, Mrs Lensherr—" He yelps as Magda grabs Lorna ( _an amazing feat since Lorna's an unbelievably lanky sixteen year old_ ), cradling her almost gently, and smacks his hands painfully as he tries to explain himself.

"All you Guerras are the same! You can't leave my little girl alone!" She fusses over the wounds on Lorna's face, and Marcos sheepishly smiles. It's partially true, considering he has almost never left Lorna alone for the past ten years of their life.

"Ma, you've got it wrong. He's the one that helped Lorns." Wanda smiles widely at him, a cool washcloth in hand as she places it on Lorna's bruised cheeks. "He has a really bad crush on Lorna too." He's doubly embarrassed when she whispers that to Mrs Lensherr, and the older lady's eyes widen in surprise. Her attitude changes a 180 degrees right after.

"So you're the one that my little girl has been talking about. The one that took care of her all this while." He's in their kitchen, sipping on a hot chocolate as Magda digs the glass out from him feet. Wanda looks after Lorna in the adjacent room, cordoned off by a flimsy curtain. The Lensherrs aren't well off like the Guerras are, but in contrast to the stone cold house that belonged to Carmen and her father, this place was bright, warm and filled with a comforting aura. He likes this place. And he likes the fact that Lorna's been living in such a wonderful place for almost all her life.  
"I didn't really take care of her, Mrs Lensherr." He admits sheepishly.

"Call me Magda." She pulls a shard out of his foot while answering absent-mindedly.

"I just…followed her everywhere."

"Why didn't you talk to her?" Magda plucks another glass piece deftly from his feet. "You've been following her for ten years. You like her. But Lorna tells me you've never spoken to her." Marcos blushes, turning his head to the side shyly.

"She's too good for me." He blurts out immediately, before grimacing as Magda slaps the back of his head lightly.

"Nonsense. There is no such thing as someone being too good for another person. I say you're the right one for her." Her eyes trail off to the closed curtain. "You're strong, so I know you can protect her."

"I didn't do that today." Marcos pulls a long face. "If I did, she wouldn't have gotten hurt." Magda shakes her head.

"That's not your fault, Marcos. No one can ever know what might happen. You saved her. That's all that matters." Magda hands him an ointment. "My little girl may be strong, but she needs someone to look after her too." The red headed lady stoops to look at his dark eyes. "And because you saved her tonight, I know that deep inside you're strong." She taps the center of his chest. "It just needs the right thing to draw it out."

Marcos follows the path of his eyes to where Lorna lay beyond the curtain, his mouth dry.

"Take care of my little girl for me, will you, Marcos? She needs you more than me." The eyes of Magda Lensherr are firm but sad. He swallows, and nods. "Alright then! " He's stunned by the bright change in her demeanour, immediately after his agreement. "You're always welcome to stay."

…  
He never returns to the Guerras.

And Carmen avoids him as though he's her worst enemy, not that Marcos minds much.

He has Lorna by his side now, and that makes up for everything else.

He also has Wanda and Pietro, and despite how annoying the latter could actually be, he actually enjoys the twin's company.

"Marcos!" The Lorna he sees now is a bright blur of a stunning green as she hurls herself into his arms, squealing loud enough to wake the neighborhood.

They've been dating for five years and married for two, but he feels that he's been apart of her family ever since the moment he laid his eyes on her.

"Hey." He's all warm and soft, eyes crinkling at the edges only for the girl in his arms that he so loves. Pietro's not far behind, lugging in the nearest shipment they've had. ( _the Guerras declined after Carmen's father's death, and Marcos seized the chance to overthrow them and take over, seizing the Monopoly to establish his own force to rival and eliminate them._ )

The East of the Slum is now a safe haven for people like them, and they've added more to their extended but quirkish family. He grins at Clarice, John's girlfriend, who winks at him and chuckles as her boyfriend tugs her into his arms for a kiss. She's been Lorna's first friend since Wanda, the two ladies having bonded mutually over their coloured hair and unique abilities, and have been inseparable ever since.

"Guess what?" His attention is drawn back to the excited Lorna in his arms, Magda hobbling after her in her old age, cane thwacking the ground by her side.

"What?" He can read the excitement in her eyes, but can't tell why. "Are you alright?" She grins widely and shakes her head, and a slow sense of horror starts to Dawn on his heart.

 _Oh god. There was something wrong?_

"I'm _pregnant_!" She screams, waving the pregnancy stick at him with all her over excited exuberance, and he gasps momentarily from relief before sweeping her into his arms tightly for a kiss.

She tastes like mint and metal, like the freshest breath of an autumn breeze, the smell of the autumn rain all around her and in her hair, and they both have tears in their eyes as they laugh over the joyous news of an addition to their family. Wanda screams happily, tackling both of them excitedly. Pietro ruffles Lorna's hair, and Magda cups his face and plants a kiss on both their cheeks, tears on her wizened face.

…

Its the year that he's twenty-five and she's twenty-three. They have a baby on the way, a loud extended family by their side, and for once in his life, Marcos thinks he's finally home.

A/N: eclipsepolarisxauroraborealis countryole btahmisyan themutantunderground thegiftedpredictions dairdevil


	34. In Your Arms

_16\. Why are you crying?_

 _18\. Tell me what's wrong._

They're into their ninth month of pregnancy as a couple when Lorna's pregnancy hormones kick in and Marcos freaks.

He's just finished buying the pizza for their regular meeting at Clarisse and John's place, while Lorna sat back at the sofa in John's house waiting for their daughter to grace the world, resting her swollen feet and taming her food cravings.

In fact, she'd called just two hours ago, asking for a pizza, extra cheese, large with crusts, no anchovies, and lots of… _mustard_. Marcos gags at the choking smell of the mustard filling the car that they're in, and sticks his head out of the car occasionally to breathe. Ever since Lorna's hormones had taken on a machete swing in her late stages of pregnancy, her appetite for weird, odd food cravings also increased. Not that he had anything against mustard _and_ pizza, of course. A little bit of it was good. But Lorna liked to lump a whole dollop of the sauce onto the pizza, till he doubted that she was eating almost anything save for mustard at all. He sighed gently, cradling the still warm pizza in his hands as he got out of the car, nodding to Pedro with a wry grin.

He yelped as the main doors nearly slammed on him, wobbling as he tries to balance the three stacks of pizza Lorna had ordered.

"What's this? Pizza delivery?" John grins, before getting a whiff of the boxes and gagging. "I hope you got something normal in there."

"It's masked by the mustard. It's all the way at the bottom." Marcos grumbles at his friend. "And don't let Lorna hear you going on about that. The last time she heard me say something about her mustard addiction, we had a debate on it for three hours."

"Ugh, god. What's that smell?" John shushes Clarisse with a kiss that has Marcos gagging as he slams the main doors shut with his leg. "Hey Marcos."

"Hey to you too, Mr and Mrs I-like-making-PDA-obvious." Clarisse detaches herself from her boyfriend, breaking away from their kiss to growl in his face.

"Oh yeah? Not as obvious as Horny 1 and Horny 2. As if the light show that happens Everytime you two get your sexy times or affection on isn't explicitly PDA enough." She flicks her head in the direction of the television, where three of them could see Lorna's propped up swollen feet.

" _Shhhh_!"

"Do you wanna die a really painful death?"

"What?!" Clarisse almost huffs, throwing off John's firm clasp on her. "Oh my God. Don't tell me she's also gotten sensitive about that!"

Marcos rolls his eyes.

"Well. _Duh_." He deadpans. "The last time she almost cried. Then flew into a rage because she almost cried. Sometimes I don't know if I hate or love my kid more."

"You love her." Clarisse pats his shoulder comfortingly, with an annoyingly smug smile on her face. "You'll go so Gaga over her the moment she pops out of Lorna's belly."

A sudden screaming wail rushes out from the living room, and Marcos immediately thrusts the boxes of mustard smelling pizza at John, abandoning everything to flee in the direction where the cry came from.

"Lorna!" He gasps, chest heaving as he skids into the living room, where she's cuddled up with the pillow fort that Norah and the rest of the children had built around her ( _it pillowed around her belly and made her feel warm and snug_ ), the children staring wide eyed at him at the end of her swollen feet. "Lorna!" He tries to get his breath back into his chest, nearly collapsing at the side of her chair. "Tell me what's wrong?" He checks her visually everywhere with his eyes.

Okay.

Hands intact.

Feet intact.

Belly is still swollen.

Doesn't seem like she's in pain.

Oh thank God. She's fine. Just _fine_.

He stops for a moment, relief assaulting his senses as she turns her tear stained face to him, still half crying.

"Oh babe." His heart automatically goes out to her like a reaction to her tears. "Why are you crying?"

"Because–because Jack let go of Roseeeeee!" She blubbers, the tears running a sopping mess over her face. "He coulda hanged on, and he let goooo! Then DiCaprio dropped into the waaaterrrr!" Marcos stops his pity streak Midway to turn slowly towards the television, where the Titanic was playing on full blast.

"Babe, did you just cry because of Titanic?" He almost deadpans, caught between the hilarity of the situation ( _because his usually stoic girlfriend would never ever be caught crying over romance_ ) and trying to calm Lorna down. He struggles, facial muscles twitching constantly between his regular smirk and a stoic expression.

"What?" Lorna wails. "It's a _classic_! I was thinking of watching The Notebook next." She sniffles, then blows her nose into a wad of tissue, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "I hate pregnancy hormones." She wiggles her toes sullenly. "Did you bring my pizza?" Marcos snaps to attention immediately, back stiffening as he snatches the three pizzas from John's hands, turning his nose up to his highly amused face, before thrusting the mustard covered pizzas at Lorna with pride.

"Extra cheese, extra mustard. With crust. Just like you ordered."

"Hm." He watches nervously as she stretches with the effort of putting the three stacks of pizzas to her side, balancing the one she opened on her burgeoning belly.

"I did good, didn't I?" John sniggers as Marcos almost pleads.

"Yeah yeah." Lorna's far too occupied with sating her hunger to pay attention to her boyfriend.

"So please don't kiss me after eating those pizzas." Marcos squeaks, and Clarisse snorts, covering her mouth as Lorna stops mid chew to glare at both of them.

"Are you loathing my kisses, Marcos Diaz?" She swallows a mouthful of the mustard covered pizza to glare at Marcos, her voice low.

"No?"

"But you just asked her not to kiss you after eating pizza." Norah pointed out, the little blue skinned girl tucking her knees under her chin. "You loathe it." She sing songs, and Marcos half glares at her.

"Not helping, Norah." He holds his hands up in surrender as Lorna shifts with a groan, propping herself up further to glare at him. "Look babe. I don't loathe your kisses. I just hate mustard."

"But you love me, right?"

"You know I do." A shiver runs down his back.

"Fine." She flops back onto the sofa with a heavy sigh. "Prove it by kissing me now."

"But…you just ate your mustard pizza." He points out, mollified.

"And you love me." Lorna answers back as though that's the answer for everything. " _Right_?" John slaps his back, grinning way too widely for Marcos to be comfortable.

"Oh alright. Fine." He grumbles, before pulling Lorna up slightly to steal the breath from her lips.

"Woah woah _woah_." He pries away from Lorna's lips, grinning as Clarisse's glares at him, her hands covering Norah's eyes. "There are children here, Flashlight." Marcos licked his lips as Lorna blinked, slightly dazed.

"Oh that was hot." She sighed, positively satisfied.

He grinned widely at his friend's horrified faces.

"Anything else you need?" He grins as she pouts at him and holds out an empty Ben and Jerry's tub.

"More ice cream. Please." He chuckles.

"Really? Not afraid of getting fat?"

"Your kid needs it!" She hurls the tub at him huffily just as the opening scene of The Notebook begins to roll.

"Okay okay! Jeez." He's about to stride to the kitchen to get that infernal tub of ice cream when a jerk on his hand stops him in his tracks. "Hm?" He glances down almost affectionately at Lorna.

"I changed my mind. I wanna cuddle." She throws John a glare as he sniggers.

"You sure?" He eyes her a little worried as she shifts.

"Yeah. I'm a bit cold." He palms her hand slightly, noting the goosebumps on her skin.

"Alright." He slides his arms around her gently pulling Lorna's waist towards his own. She hums lightly, striving to be as close as her large belly allowed her to, nuzzling his shoulder, a sigh of soft appreciation escaping her lips as his palms smooth over her skin.

"You're warm." She mumbles into his skin, her attention taken off by the heat given off by Marcos just being next to her.

"Of course I am. You didn't forget that I absorb solar energy into my body before giving out, haven't you?" She wiggles her toes slightly as she glares at him with all her dignity.

"I so did not forget. I'm just cold all the time while pregnant."

"Right right." He traces circles on the back of her hand comfortingly. She turns surprisingly silent as the movie plays, and Marcos' eyes dart quietly in her direction.

"Hey Marcos?"

"Hm?"

"Will you ever get tired of me?" There's something in her eyes that betray her vulnerability as she peeks a look at him from beneath her eyelashes, barely grazing his eyes.

"What makes you think that?" He rubs her arms chidingly, knowing that she's rarely so vulnerable—its just difficult for Lorna sometimes to accept that he loves her for everything she is ( _because she definitely hates some parts of herself. The ugly ones. The horrible, terrified Lorna that's just selfishly afraid to be all alone. He doesn't tell her that he thinks its cute, because he's insecure as well._ )

"I dunno." Her eyes are Faraway as they rub her belly, and somehow, Marcos understands.

"There's no one more perfect to me than you, Lorna Dane." His reassurance does little to comfort her stray thoughts. "Hey. _Don't_." He gives her arm a sudden jerk, drawing her from her reverie as he grips her chin gently and tilts her face up to his. There's something that flickers deep in his dark eyes, before a cheeky crooked smile crosses his face.

"You do know it's gonna take more than just a pretty face to shake me off you, right" He knocks her forehead lightly. "You're just that special to me."

"Yeah? Even though I look like a whale?" Marcos stared at her, amused.

"You're a very pretty whale, Lorna. You glow." He earns a smack on the back of his head because of that, and they stare at each other for a moment before they both collapse into laughter.

"You're ridiculous, you know." The smile on Lorna's face tells of the fondness she has for him.

"And you're perfect." She stares in utter surprise at him because of his words. There's a deep seriousness about him that tells her he's serious about this, and a soft smile crosses Lorna's lips.

"Mhm." It's his confidence in her that makes a part of who she is in life. He's her safe place, the haven of reassurance, if she needs it. "You're right about that." Her head tilts lightly, landing comfortably in his shoulder as they both turn their attentions to the playing movie, hearts and souls warmed.


	35. What it Takes To be Normal

p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444;"span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box;"em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box;"A/N: A lovely shoutout to a style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0.15em; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(68, 68, 68, 0) 50%, rgba(68, 68, 68, 0.25) 0px); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 1em 2px; background-position: 0px 1.15em;" href=" /m7hsbqTxAZs59g0P9mTav-A" quintessentiallygifted/aa style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0.15em; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(68, 68, 68, 0) 50%, rgba(68, 68, 68, 0.25) 0px); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 1em 2px; background-position: 0px 1.15em;" href=" /mR57JljElddoPZWlJC2CZSw" eclipsepolarisxauroraborealis/a and a style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0.15em; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(68, 68, 68, 0) 50%, rgba(68, 68, 68, 0.25) 0px); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 1em 2px; background-position: 0px 1.15em;" href=" /mAPxlQYcAeTmFjLcB-v2cKg" themutantunderground/a for betaing my shots for me. I've somewhat lost my touch with the Gifted world with the stress of real life piling up, and my university starting. As well as the fact that I don't watch The Gifted every Mondays any longer D: (I miss Lorna. I miss Marcos. I want them to be together T_T) This was originally in response to a ask that sat in my message box FOR AGES. To the anon that sent it x.x I'm sorry it took so long! But here it is. Angstier than I thought it would be, but I think it fits./em/span/p  
p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444;"em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box;"span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box;"Premise: For those who have read my past one shots that included Aurora, her powers are emotional manipulation based on the electromagnetic aura she senses, as inherited from Lorna, but in a highly fine tuned sense. She views emotions in colour, and they kinda manifest in certain colours when she's feeling strongly about something [it used to be uncontrolled when she was younger] but.] Her emotional manipulation is extremely strong, and empathy has always been a very fragile power to tackle with. A slight abuse of her emphatic powers could very well send someone into sadness and depression, or she could very well influence people how they should feel based on her own strong emotions. /span/em/p  
p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444;"em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box;"span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box;"So hopefully that clears some doubts about her powers. /span/em/p  
p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444;"em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box;"span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box;"From ANON: Do you think you could write a fic where Lorna, Marcos, and Aurora live together in a cute little house. And one day S.S. comes for Lorna and Marcos and Aurora destroys them all with her powers. Then Marcos and Lorna are standing off to the side watching their little girl with wide eyes. And in the Lorna and Marcos comfort a crying Aurora who is still stressing over a lot over her mom and dad. /span/em/p  
p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444;" /p  
p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444;"For most of her largely abnormal life, all Aurora wanted, was to just be normal./p  
p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444;"But with two mutants as parents and a undeniable X gene in her lineage, there was no way in hell that she was ever gonna be style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /At the very least, she was glad they had managed to live in a peaceful neighbourhood, with a white picket fence and a nice little kitten, which her father practically avoids,but that's beside the point. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /They carry out their mundane lifestyle with vigour and odd happiness rarely seen in normal families, because Aurora knows deep down in her five year old heart how much of a relief it is to lead such a mundane, normal life. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /All they needed to do was to stay together, play together, em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box;"be/em together, with her daddy and mommy buying her some nice presents occasionally, and dye hers and Mama's hair promptly every time the dye itself washes out. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /At least, that was much better than crying on her Daddy while they ran, with her clinging like a mini koala to his front, and screaming when bullets hit flesh and bright glowing blood spilled forth. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /Aurora blinked her bright hazel eyes, looking beneath her lashes at the canvas before her, paint brush in hand. /p  
p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444;"br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /"Hey." br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /Her hand freezes as the door swings open, and she feels her mom even before she sees her. It's a odd camaraderie they both have, sensing each other just beyond their sensory periphery. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /"I dunno what to paint." Lorna stoops slightly as her five year old daughter dangles her legs from the stool, muttering in a flat voice. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /"Well baby, it can be anything you want. Your dreams, your hopes. What you want to happen in the future. You could even paint Mr Tibbles." Their kitten meows in prideful acceptance at the corner, and Aurora contemplates her mother's suggestion with a tilt of her head, before putting her brush down slowly and deliberately. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /"Momma, do we have to run again?" br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /The question hits Lorna right in the chest where it hurts the most, especially when staring into her daughter's serious eyes. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /"No baby. We don't." She ruffles the fading black hair, tinges of light mint green filtering through the dark strands. "We need to start dying your hair again." Her heart drops as Aurora's head falls to her chest, and her tiny head nods. Just slightly. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /"Then why are you and Daddy packing stuff in the basement?" Lorna freezes. "I saw you and Daddy yesterday night when I woke up to drink water." Her daughter's feet curl on each other and rubs together tentatively. "You were packing stuff like last time." The rest of the statement is unanswered, a knowledge both of them clearly knew—the last time Lorna and Marcos had taken such measures was when they were sure the Sentinel Services would come for them. Aurora had been so young then, but the experience and the near escape had been traumatic enough to imprint on her young mind, enough for her to refuse to speak for an entire year. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /Never again. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /"It's gonna be different this time, baby." Lorna has never been more determined to protect this place her daughter now calls home, and her heart shatters in two when Aurora sniffles. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /"I don't wanna you to die!" She lapsed in her proper usage of vocabulary, her distress apparent as she clutched Lorna's shirt with two small fists. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /"We won't. I promise." br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /….br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /Those words echo in Aurora's tiny mind when she sees her mommy and daddy on the floor, bleeding out with men triumphant over their bleeding bodies. She's still dressed in her pink elephant pyjamas that her daddy bought for her birthday a few weeks before, and the green teddy bear her Momma had took her to Build Your Bear to make with her. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /There's something stuck in her chest that heaves, drops and ricochets wildly all at the same time, and she stares at the Sentinel Service men that all blank out before her, surprise evident in their eyes, especially in those of that of the one she heard her parents mention before, the one called Jace Turner. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /"They didn't mention there's a kid." br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /There's something hot and wet that flies down her face, too fast to catch, and she sees her mommy moving, slowly—there's a plastic bullet in her leg and another three in her stomach, and she's bleeding out, but her Mommy still moves—railing with her nails and hands onto the nearest officer with everything she has. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /The shot that goes off is reflexive. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /And Aurora sees something splatter out from her Mommy's chest, tearing a chunk in her stomach. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /She coughs, then pulls her protectively into a hug, curling herself so solidly around Aurora's tiny body that there's no space left for the other men to see the little girl's body, like a solid shell of fleshy armour that wraps, protects and never let's go. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /Aurora only trembles in her mother's arms. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /She's not going to cry. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;  
box-sizing: border-box;" /em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box;"Not. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /Going. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /To. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /embr style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /But the traitorous tears already well in her sockets, threatening to fall from her long lashes. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box;"A curvy road. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /The sound of swings that go creak creak creak. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /Mommy laughing, Daddy laughing. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /When Mommy hugs me before I style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /Bags with four wheels on them. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /Nice books with pictures./em/p  
p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444;"em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box;"The smell of paper against her nose./em/p  
p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444;"em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box;"The smell of clean laundry from hiding under her Mama's style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /Mr Tibbles./em/p  
p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 15px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box; min-height: 1px; color: #444444;"She chants to herself, pulling her mind as her voice rose higher and higher, shriller and shriller as she recites mentally the things she likes—because Daddy once told her that tears do stop when you talk to yourself about the things you really like. She'd done that when they needed to escape the first time, and Daddy had hidden her in abag with four wheels so they couldn't find her. (em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box;"She recited. They'd successfully escaped./em) br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box;"em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box;"White fence. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /Picket fence. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" . .CHAIRSbr style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" .PANS./embr style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /spanbr style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box;"T/emears obscure her vision, and the heavy metallic smell of death fills her nostrils. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /Something warm and wet drips onto her forehead as the officers awkwardly stand at one side, watching her as those traitorous tears fall from her eyes. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /"I want Mommy." Jace Turner's eyes are full of regret as she hiccups. "I want Daddy." br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /"I'm sorry kid." He offers her the second best present for condolences. "I wouldn't have if I had known." br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /Eyes that remind him of his long dead daughter bore into his with hatred far surpassing what a child her age should have. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /He pries Lorna Dane's body from her daughter, determined to at least compensate the little girl with a hug that can't bring back either of her parents. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /"I hate you." The tearful lilt of her voice is too musical for someone full of so much hate, the tilt of her head innocent and childlike, and that's the last thing Jace Turner remembers before his mind snaps. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /….br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /The glow that lights the little five year old's eyes dies out as the last of the officers scamper on the ground, barking their heads off and chasing their imaginary tails, the vines of light that curls from Aurora's body releasing their grasping hold on them, emotionally. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /Aurora curled into herself as she sat by the stairs, her small hand tightly clasped in her Momma's hands. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /"I made someone mad again, Mama. You've got ta wake up and scold me." She tugs on the listless hand with a slight demand. "See?" She points to Jace Turner, clucking around like a chicken as she stared ahead blankly. "You said I can't play with people's emotions and make people crazy anyhow I like. But I did. So wake up and scold me." She nudges Lorna's hand with her foot. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /"Momma, wake up." Her voice falls to a style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /The hand doesn't shift from her nudges any longer, and there's nothing surrounding her that's minutely familiar to the life they led moments before. br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; outline: none 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;" /Tears well, spill down her eyes, and Aurora's world caves into nothingness. /p 


End file.
